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The Scotch Gambit is a tricky and potentially aggressive line that White can play when opening with the Scotch Game. It begins in typical Scotch fashion (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4), but after Black captures the d4 pawn (3… exd4), White opts to not capture the pawn back with their knight, but develops the bishop instead (4. Bd4). I’m not a Scotch Gambit player, but the tactical logic here is that White gambits the pawn for rapid development with a potential rapid attack on Black’s position, possibly against the weak f7 pawn.

So as Black, how should be respond?

According to Stockfish evaluation, the top three engine recommendations are close – Bc5 (Haxo Gambit) [0.00], Bb4+ (London Defense) [0.00], and Nf6 (Dubois Reti Defense) [-0.10]. Let’s have a look at these three in turn as there are some important differences.

I have previously played Bc4 (which now is known as the Haxo Gambit) as it seems to appeal to a logic. There is an extra defender on the pawn on d4, the bishop is developed to a natural looking square, and it potentially places future pressure on the f2 pawn. However, White now has a devious move, attacking with the c-pawn (5. c3). According to the Lichess community database of lower-rated blitz and rapid games, White has a major win advantage – 59% (White) vs 38% (Black). Capturing the c-pawn, the most common move, is a mistake with the win ratio shifting to 63% (White) vs 34% (Black). So, I don’t recommend this.

The London Defense (Bb+) looks spicy by immediately giving a check. However, this is easy to defend by White with c3, and they have a great win advantage in beginner-intermediate games at 55% (White) vs 41% (Black).

I do recommend the Dubois Reti Defense (Nf6), which interestingly, the chess.com analytic engine considers to be a transposition to an open variation of the Two Knights Italian. Here, White had only one of two options where they mostly maintain equality. Anything else gives an important advantage to Black. They can either castle (5. O-O), but the response is obvious for Black, which is to capture the hanging pawn on e4. Or they can play the Advance variation and push the e-pawn (5. e5) and immediately threatening the knight on f6. Here, Black needs to remember one move which might not be immediately obvious – d5, counterattacking the opponent’s bishop. The objective evaluation is still equal, but this is the only line where the Lichess win ratio swings firmly away from White without there being a mistake at 43% (White) vs 54% (Black).

One of the high rated players (shout out to ninjaswat) in the chess.com club, “Chess Boot Camp” described this line in chat a few weeks ago and I forgot the critical move (5… d5) until after I made the wrong move! I compound one error with another, and you can see from the actual game that the Scotch Gambit is powerful when Black makes a mistake. Luckily for me, I managed to lure my opponent’s queen into a trap – baiting it with a seemingly hanging pawn. A knight fork between the queen and king, and thus, winning the queen, and I was back ahead. It was still tricky as I was down a piece, but the extra power of the queen made the difference and my opponent resigned at the end of a series of exchanges that led to rook vs queen endgame.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/52537838161

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.26"]
[Round "-"]
[White "64squares89"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C45"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Scotch-Game-Scotch-Gambit-Dubois-Reti-Advance-Variation"]
[UTCDate "2022.07.26"]
[UTCTime "01:29:42"]
[WhiteElo "1398"]
[BlackElo "1276"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]
[StartTime "01:29:42"]
[EndDate "2022.07.26"]
[EndTime "02:21:10"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/52537838161"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 {Scotch Gambit} 4... Nf6 {the Dubois Reti Defense - probably the best response)} (4... Bb4+ {the London Defense and is objectively fine according to the engine, but White has a win advantage over Black}) (4... Bc5 {the Haxo Gambit - the most common lines give a large win advantage to White}) 5. e5 Qe7 $2 {I play the wrong move, given a substantial advantage to White [+2.18]} (5... d5 {[%c_arrow
d5c4;keyPressed;none;from;d5;opacity;0.8;to;c4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c4;persistent;false] This is the critical response by Black.  In this position, White has only one move that maintains equality, Bb5, with all other moves giving the advantage to Black.}) 6. O-O d5 $2 7. exf6 Qxf6 8. Bxd5 Be6 9. Bxe6 fxe6 10. Bg5 Qg6 11. Re1 Bb4 12. c3 dxc3 13. Nxc3 O-O 14. Qe2 Rxf3 15. Qxf3 Rf8 16. Qe3 e5 17. Bh4 Nd4 18. Qxe5 $4 Nf3+ $1 19. Kf1 Nxe5 20. Rxe5 Bd6 21. Rg5 Qd3+ 22. Kg1 Qd4 23. Bg3 Qf6 24. Ne4 Qxb2 25. Rf1 Bxg3 26. Rxg3 Qd4 27. Ng5 Qd5 28. a4 c5 29. Nf3 c4 30. Rg5 Qc6 31. a5 c3 32. Nd4
Qf6 33. Rg4 Rc8 34. Ne2 c2 35. h3 Rd8 36. Nd4 Rxd4 37. Rxd4 Qxd4 {[%c_effect
g8;square;g8;type;Winner,g1;square;g1;type;ResignWhite]} 0-1