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One of the amazing things about chess is how quickly you can encounter something that is novel to you, even in an opening you have a great degree of familiarity. Recently, I played a game where I was able to open with the standard (Falkbeer) Vienna Gambit (e4 e5 Nc3 Nf6 f4) where my opponent surprised me. They declined the gambit by defending their pawn on e5 with Bd6. According to the Lichess community database of lower-rated blitz and rapid games, the Vienna Gambit is declined by Bd6 only 1% of the time.

My knowledge of the Vienna Gambit was such that I immediately knew that this was objectively bad, and yet at the same time, I didn’t know how to immediately punish it! In the actual game, I used the heuristic that “if you can take the full centre with pawns, you should do so” and I played d4, putting three pawns in the centre. This is a mistake – a blunder in fact according to Stockfish.

On post-game analysis with the chess.com Stockfish engine, the way to approach this is in the same way as the much more common decline of the Vienna Gambit with Nc6. That is, the line starts with immediately capturing the opponent’s e-pawn with the f-pawn (4. fxe4). The only logical move is for the Black bishop to capture back (4… Bxe5), they defended the pawn with bishop for this purpose after all. However, this then allows for the forward advance by the d-pawn, to which Black must retreat their bishop (5. d4 Bd6). Then, the e-pawn marches forward again (6. e5) which forks Black’s bishop and knight, and it is unavoidable that one of them will be lost. At the end of this sequence, the evaluation favours White at over +4, White is up in material by a full piece, and has more development. White has a win advantage over Black at 80% vs 18% at this point.

In essence, against a prepared Vienna Gambit player, declining the gambit with Bd6 is losing on move 3!

In the actual game, the trickiness of the Vienna Gambit saved me from my error, and I got a dominant position out of the opening. Simply, someone who declines the Vienna Gambit with Bd6 is not likely to play very accurately afterwards even if you do stuff up. In the middle game, I managed to get a massive attack on the opponent’s king, and even scored a brilliancy according to the engine on move 16! I squander that immediately, but the advantage of my better structure allowed me to force an endgame where I had two rooks to my opponent’s one.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/52024820237

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.20"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "cdleeds"]
[Result "1-0"]
[CurrentPosition "8/pp5R/8/7k/4r3/2P3R1/P4KPP/8 b - -"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C28"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Vienna-Game-Falkbeer-Vienna-Gambit"]
[UTCDate "2022.07.20"]
[UTCTime "03:00:26"]
[WhiteElo "1248"]
[BlackElo "1246"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "03:00:26"]
[EndDate "2022.07.20"]
[EndTime "03:35:32"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/52024820237"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 {(Beginning of the Vienna Gambit)} 3... Bd6 {(This is a blunder [+4.20].  Black cannot decline the Vienna Gambit with Bd6.  In the actual game, however, I didn't know how to punish it as it is seen in only about 1\% of Vienna Gambits according to the Lichess community database.)} 4. d4 {(d4 is not the correct response [-0.23])} (4. fxe5 {(Immediately capturing the pawn is the best move and begins a line where Black will end up losing a piece)} 4... Bxe5 5. d4 Bd6 6. e5 {[%c_arrowe5d6;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;d6;persistent;false,e5f6;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;f6;persistent;false][%c_highlight
d6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d6;persistent;false,f6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f6;persistent;false] (And with e5, White has a fantastic opening position [+4.4] forking the bishop and knight.  Black now must make the unfortunate decision regarding which piece to lose.)}) 4... Nc6 5. fxe5 Bb4 6. exf6 Qxf6 7. Nf3 O-O 8. e5 Re8 9. Be2 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 Qe7 11. O-O d6 12. Ng5 h6 13. Rxf7 Qd8 14. Bc4 d5 15. Bxd5 (15. Qd3 {[%c_arrow d3h7;keyPressed;none;from;d3;opacity;0.8;to;h7;persistent;false]}) 15... Qxd5 16. Qh5 {(A brilliant move! [+4.31].  In the game, I knew this move was likely powerful, but I don't make the most of the position.)} 16... hxg5 17. Rxc7 {(A blunder resulting in a complete loss of advantage [-0.39])} (17. Rxg7+ {(The continuation of the brilliant move required another piece sacrifice!)} 17... Kf8 {(If Black refuses to take the rook, then +M2)} (17... Kxg7 18. Qxg5+ Kf8 19. Ba3+ Kf7 {(The only way for Black to avoid mate was to block the check with Re7, which is an inhuman looking move!)} 20. Rf1+) 18. Qh8+ Qg8 19. Qxg8#) 17... Nb4 18. Qxe8+ Kh7 19. Qh5+ Kg8 20. Bxg5 Nxc2 21. Qg6 Bd7 22. Rf1 Nxd4 23. Bh6 Qxe5 24. Bxg7 Qxg7 25. Qxg7+ {(And here, I happily enter into a series of trades where I'll enter an endgame two rooks vs one.)} 25... Kxg7 26. Rxd7+ Kg6 27. Rxd4 Rc8 28. Rg4+ Kh5 29. Rg3 Re8 30. Rf7 Re1+ 31. Kf2 Re4 32. Rh7# {[%c_effect f2;square;f2;type;Winner,h5;square;h5;type;CheckmateBlack]} 1-0