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The Caro-Kann Defense (1. e4 c6) is one of the best responses by Black against e4. I’ve not done well against it and this seems confirmed by the Lichess community database when we look at lower rated games of blitz and rapid. Out of over 82 million e4 games, the Caro-Kann is the only response that statistically gives an immediate win advantage to Black (49%) vs White (47%).

Historically, I tended to play the main line when responding to the Caro-Kann as White and I’ve never entirely enjoyed those positions and games. So, I was very interested to learn of the von Hennig Gambit from @benhunt72 in his video. And, the first time I tried it, I got the beautiful 8 move checkmate, which is the game demonstrated here.

This was a 10 min rapid game with 5 second increment, and incredibly, my opponent lost to checkmate with 9:58 on their clock, and I had 10:09! This opening gambit is particularly effective when playing the opening rapidly for a psychological reason, as we shall see.

The gambit begins on move 4 by developing the bishop (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Bc4) rather than capturing back the pawn on e4. We are trading a pawn for rapid development. The natural move for Black is to now guard their advanced pawn on e4 by developing their knight (4… Nf6). This is, in fact, Black’s best move.

We now play another suboptimal move (5. f3), but the engine evaluation is not too bad at [-1.10]. The idea is to remove the pawn on e4, so that we can place our knight on f3. Again, the “obvious” move for Black is to trade away that pawn as it otherwise seems like it will be lost (5… exf3). We achieve our goal and develop our other knight and capturing the pawn (6. Nxf3).

Once we reach this position, Black now needs to make the critical blunder that otherwise appears to be a sensible looking and strong move. They need to develop their light-squared bishop to ostensibly pin our knight to the queen (6… Bg4). This is a blunder for Black [+2.51] and even if they don’t fall for the checkmate trap below, White still has a good advantage.

The devastatingly effective trap from this position is advancing the knight (7. Ne5). The knight covers the d7 and f7 squares, and if the opponent doesn’t address this, bishop capturing the f7 pawn will be checkmate. What makes this move effective psychologically is that not only have we hung the queen, but there is also a plausible reason why we might have done this as a mistake. Simply, the knight, which was being attacked by the bishop, has moved to counter-attack the bishop. If the opponent accepts this rationale as the explanation for the move, then they are very likely to take the queen. This is where playing the move rapidly is important so that it seems like a “oh no, my queen!” blunder! If you play the move after thinking, then the jig is up as the opponent will likely be suspicious and identify the trap.

How likely is this checkmate line likely to work? At the beginner-intermediate level, the answer is, “pretty good”! In lower rated games of blitz and rapid, every single one of the moves Black needs to make is the most frequent move that is played. Statistically, 1 in 5 games will reach position with Black’s critical blunder (6… Bg4) from the beginning of the von Hennig Gambit, and half the time, Black will take the queen resulting in checkmate next turn. Even if they don’t fall for the checkmate trap, White is in a great fantastic position and chess continues.

So, the calculus here is that we must balance a roughly [-1] position in the middle game if the opponent manages to avoid the traps, for around a guaranteed 20% chance of have a [+2.5] by move 7, with a 10% chance of win by checkmate on move 8! At the beginner-intermediate level, I think it is worth giving a go as a [-1] position is far from losing. However, at more advanced levels, this gambit is much less likely to be effective.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/5A42czCZ2N

[Event "Rated Rapid game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/lAbZFPEu"]
[Date "2022.08.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "przemojed"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.08.19"]
[UTCTime "03:19:37"]
[WhiteElo "1562"]
[BlackElo "1558"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+14"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-9"]
[TimeControl "600+5"]
[ECO "B15"]
[Opening "Caro-Kann Defense: von Hennig Gambit"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]
[WhiteUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/3711094.ab0f2ae8.30x30o.12380eb711c1@2x.jpeg"]
[WhiteCountry "17"]
[WhiteTitle ""]
[BlackUrl ""]
[BlackCountry "112"]
[BlackTitle ""]

1. e4 c6 {Caro-Kann Defense} 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Bc4 {[%c_arrow
c4f7;keyPressed;none;from;c4;opacity;0.8;to;f7;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false] von Hennig Gambit [-0.65]. The gambit isn't entirely sound with White choosing rapid development for the cost of a pawn.} 4... Nf6 5. f3 {This direct attack is to enable the goal of placing a knight on f3 [-1.10]} 5... exf3 6. Nxf3 Bg4 $4 {This is a blunder [+2.51]. Queen-side expansion with b5 (best) or a5 is recommended by the engine.} 7. Ne5 {[%c_arrow
f3e5;keyPressed;none;from;f3;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,c4f7;keyPressed;none;from;c4;opacity;0.8;to;f7;persistent;false,f7e8;keyPressed;none;from;f7;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
d7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d7;persistent;false,f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false,e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false]
An \"oh no, my queen\" trap, setting up an [+M1] trap.} 7... Bxd1 $4 {[%c_arrow
c4f7;keyPressed;none;from;c4;opacity;0.8;to;f7;persistent;false,f7e8;keyPressed;none;from;f7;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false,d7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d7;persistent;false,f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false]
My opponent falls for the trap.} 8. Bxf7# {[%c_effect
e1;square;e1;type;Winner,e8;square;e8;type;CheckmateBlack][%c_highlight
d7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d7;persistent;false,e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false,f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false][%c_arrow
f7e8;keyPressed;none;from;f7;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false] White wins by
checkmate.} 1-0