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Today, I played as Black against another Scotch Game and I, once again, deployed the Steinitz Variation line (4… Qh4). And again, it was a win! I think this is more than a fluke now as I’ve now won 5 out of 5 Steinitz Variation games against the Scotch. In comparison, I’d lost around 60% of the time out of 19 games using the much more standard “Classical Variation” (4… Bc5). Considering that these were games largely without much study, against people who play the Scotch regularly, I think this is quite remarkable!

The Lichess community database of lower-rated blitz and rapid games supports this. There are more than 1.5 million Scotch Games in this category, and Black responds with the Steinitz Variation less than 2% of the time. It’s the 8th most common response. This means that the Scotch Game player will rarely see this position. More than that, it is the ONLY response where Black has a win advantage over White, and not an insubstantial one (54% vs 41%).

The interesting thing after entering the Steinitz Variation is that move 5 for both players are kind of naturally obvious and are thus the most common moves. White develops a knight move to defend the pawn on e4 (5. Nc3), and then Black responds by upping the ante by pinning that knight to the king with their dark square bishop (5… Bb4). This obvious line is the “Modern Defense” in the Steinitz Variation of the Scotch Game.

However, move 6 is generally where things get critical for White. The Scotch Game player has only one good move that maintains their advantage – developing their light square bishop seemingly in a passive move in front of their king (6. Be2). However, this is very solid as it lines up the White queen and bishop in a battery and baits the Black queen into taking the pawn on e4, and then the pawn on g2, with a seemingly attack on the rook. However, if Black gets greedy, this is a serious mistake as the light square bishop now attacks the black queen with Bf3, with x-ray defence of that rook. Black’s attack collapses as the queen needs to escape and is on the wrong part of the board that is unsupported by Black’s other pieces. Fundamentally, the Steinitz Variation is objectively bad for Black.

However, in beginner-intermediate chess, how likely is it that White find this critical move (6. Be2) down this line of theory? According to Lichess, of around 30,000 games of the Steinitz Variation of the Scotch Game, White played this move around 3% of the time. Of all Scotch Games, this occurred in only 1 in 1600 games. This means that there is a very high likelihood that a Scotch player will never find this move, or have seen it before, unless they’ve specifically studied this response. The second-best response for White is equal for White and Black, and everything else gives the advantage to Black!

Wilhelm Steinitz was the first official world chess champion in the 19th century, and he was known at the earlier part of his career for his aggressive attacking style that was characteristic of the Romantic period of chess. This line in the Scotch Game perfectly captures this mood – wild, aggressive, somewhat unsound, but successful in regular games!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/51503426319

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "tylerbobo"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C45"]
[WhiteElo "1170"]
[BlackElo "1218"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "19:42:11 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Qf3 Nxd4 7. Qd3 c5 8. Bd2 Nf6 9. O-O-O Qxf2 10. e5 Ng4 11. Ne4 Bxd2+ 12. Rxd2 Qe1+ 13. Rd1 Qe3+ 14. Rd2 Nf5 15. Qxe3 Ngxe3 16. Nxc5 Nxf1 17. Rxf1 Ne3 18. Rf3 Nc4 19. Rd4 Nxe5 20. Re4 d6 21. Nd3 f6 22. Rg3 O-O 23. Nxe5 fxe5 24. b3 Be6 25. Re2 Rf4 26. h3 Raf8 27. Kb2 Rf2 28. Ree3 Bd5 29. Rg4 Rxg2 30. Rb4 Rf3 31. Re1 Rff2 32. Rb5 Rxc2+ 33. Ka3 Rxa2+ 34. Kb4 a5+ 35. Kc3 Rg3+ 36. Re3 Rxe3# 0-1