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The Ruy Lopez Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5) is one of the oldest chess openings. It is named after Ruy Lopez de Segura, a 16th century Spanish chess player and priest, who wrote one of the oldest books about modern chess and developed some of the opening theory of this opening. At the same time, some of Lopez’s chess strategies don’t seem entirely sporting, including the suggestion to, “Place the board so that the sun is in your opponent’s eyes”!

Carl Jaenisch is separated from Ruy Lopez by three centuries, living in the 19th century. Notably, his friend the English chess master Howard Staunton called him a truly “amiable and upright man” in a letter after learning of Jaenisch’s death.

In my own chess journey, I used to not look forward to facing against the Ruy Lopez. That is, until I discovered the Jaenisch Gambit this year!

This game proceeded in a similar fashion to my last video on the “beautiful” game of the Jaenisch. I was very happy to see that I won this game with an accuracy of over 90% with the evaluation curve consistently and progressively improving in my favour as the moves progressed.

Like that previous game, my opponent’s centralisation of their rook (8. Re1) was their first inaccuracy/mistake, as my strategy is the launch a massive king-side attack, with the f2 pawn being the initial target.

Stockfish’s evaluation gives a picture of how White could have avoided their eventual defeat. White needed to prevent me assembling the multiple pieces attacking f2. For instance, on move 14 my opponent opted to push forward their knight into my position (14. Nd5). However, Stockfish recommended that my opponent immediately trade their dark square bishop for my knight (14. Bxf6) to blunt my attack.

A couple of moves later, my opponent attempted to rescue that bishop on h4, now under attack by the queen, with g3 (16. g3). Unfortunately, by pushing forward that pawn, my opponent critically weakened the defence of their king. King defence is always the top priority. The evaluation at this point was [-9] in my favour and checkmate came inexorably with all the king’s pawns stripped away.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/53305808033

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.08.03"]
[Round "-"]
[White "shrithasri"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C63"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Ruy-Lopez-Opening-Jaenisch-Gambit-4.d3-fxe4-5.dxe4-Nf6"]
[UTCDate "2022.08.03"]
[UTCTime "22:48:06"]
[WhiteElo "1258"]
[BlackElo "1258"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "22:48:06"]
[EndDate "2022.08.03"]
[EndTime "23:13:55"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/53305808033"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 {Jaenisch Gambit} 4. d3 fxe4 5. dxe4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Bc5 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 $6 {An inaccuracy. Black's strategy is to launch a massive king-side attack with the f2 pawn as the initial target.} 8... d6 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bh4 Nd4 11. Bc4+ Kh8 12. Nxd4 Bxd4 13. Qd2 Qe8 14. Nd5 $2 {A mistake as Ng4 brings two attackers on f2 [-2.85]} 14... Ng4 15. Rf1 $6 {An inaccuracy [-4.31]. Ne3 is best as it threatens the black knight and blocks the attack by bishop on d4 on f2.} 15... Qh5 $1 16. g3 $2 {A serious mistake [-9.34] as the pawn not only blocks the dark square bishop's defence of f2, it will now be trapped by g5.} 16... Bxf2+ 17. Kh1 g5 18. Ne7 gxh4 19. gxh4 Kh7 20. Be2 Qxh4 21. Bxg4 Bxg4 22. Rxf2 Rxf2 23. Qe1 Qxh2# {[%c_effect
h7;square;h7;type;Winner,h1;square;h1;type;CheckmateWhite]} 0-1