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The Vienna Game is an excellent opening for White. However, like all openings, a careless move can be disastrous. Recently, I played a couple of games against an opponent in a round in a Team Australia tournament where we both used the Vienna Game opening. And in both games, we both make what were pretty much game-ending mistakes in the opening.

In the first game, my opponent with White playing the Vienna Game, played a very unusual move (3. g4). This move immediately gives an advantage to Black, but not yet game ending. The Mieses Variation of the Vienna Game (3. g3) is a solid opening, with the plan to fianchetto the king’s bishop. The critical mistake came later. I took the opportunity to take the full centre (3… d5) and after a pawn exchange and recapture with the queen, my opponent lost sight of the fact that he now had an open diagonal to his king’s rook. So, on move 6, I captured my opponent’s rook with queen, and they have no compensation with the evaluation favouring Black at -9!

In the second game, I played with White and the Vienna Game, and we went down the Max Lange Defense Line. My mistake, however, is that I couldn’t quite remember all the ideas after my opponent’s “desperate” attempt to set up an attack with advancing their knight (6… Ng4). I got the first part right, advancing my f-pawn (7. f5) which sets up a massive pawn chain controlling the centre and cuts off the bishop’s defence of the knight on g4. Basically, this is “closing the fence” on the knight, which is why the knight advance is bad. If you look at Stockfish’s recommendation for the best next move for Black, it is immediately withdrawing the knight back from the attack. However, I then forgot that I needed to defend against Qh4+ and foolishly immediately attacked the knight with a pawn. Checkmate came two moves later!

Game 1: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/416013151

[Event "TA 2022 Improvers Mach 11 - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.16"]
[Round "?"]
[White "melion1971"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C25"]
[WhiteElo "1184"]
[BlackElo "1187"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[EndDate "2022.07.18"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. Nc3 e5 2. e4 Nf6 3. g4 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. Nxd5 Qxd5 6. c4 Qxh1 7. Nh3 Qe4+ 8. Be2 Bxg4 9. d3 Qh1+ 10. Kd2 Bb4+ 11. Kc2 Qxd1+ 12. Bxd1 Bxh3 13. Bf3 c6 14. a3 Bc5 15. Bd2 Bxf2 16. Bc3 Bd4 17. Bxd4 exd4 18. c5 O-O 19. a4 a5 20. Kb3 Na6 21. Kc4 Rad8 22. Re1 Be6+ 0-1

Game 2: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/416398303

[Event "TA 2022 Improvers Mach 11 - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.18"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "melion1971"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C25"]
[WhiteElo "1175"]
[BlackElo "1191"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[EndDate "2022.07.18"]
[Termination "melion1971 won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bc4 d6 4. d3 a6 5. a4 Nf6 6. f4 Ng4 7. f5 h5 8. h3 Qh4+ 9. Kf1 Qf2# 0-1