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Today’s game was submitted by one of my Indian subscribers, @Utkarsho, who played a quintessential quick win attack in a game of 1-minute bullet – a masterful demonstration of the romance of the Alien Gambit against the Caro-Kann Defense. My subscriber won with checkmate in 11-moves, in what must have seemed like a flash! According to the clocks, only 22-seconds passed between the beginning of the game and mate.

I first wrote about the Alien Gambit in Quick Wins #85 and that article a little bit of the history of this interesting opening. In brief, it was popularised by Bulgarian CM Volen Dyulgerov, chess streamer known by his handle @Witty_Alien. At some point, chess.com included it in its analytic engine as a named opening line! 👽

The Alien Gambit is a surprising twist out of the Caro-Kann Defense: Main Line by White (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Ng5!?). What is the knight doing?

There are many opening attack tactics which targets the opponent’s weak f-pawn. The f-pawn is uniquely vulnerable at the beginning of the game as it is defended by no other piece than the king. The consequence of this is that an attack on the f-pawn in the opening stages of the game can be forcing as it is a de facto attack on the king.

The Alien Gambit takes this idea and runs it with 100% commitment! Rather than waiting for backup, White immediately sacrifices their knight for Black’s f-pawn (6. Nxf7!? Kxf7), and this is obviously a bad move, from an “objective” evaluation perspective. Indeed, the chess.com analytic engine calls this a blunder and Stockfish evaluates it at worse than [-2] (i.e., worse than the material loss). And yet, the Lichess community database demonstrates that after the knight sacrifice, White has a commanding win ratio versus Black at 60% to 37%. Wow!

Let us consider what compensation White receives from this sacrifice. Firstly, White wins some tempo as Black will probably want to, and might need to, or be forced to, move their king off f7 soon. The king has been drawn onto the weak f7 square, which is now missing a pawn. Having lost the right to castle, the Black king is relatively stuck in the weak part of their defences. In essence, it is exposed to this hole in the wall of their castle, at least in the short- to medium-term.

Black’s best moves from the position are not clear, and White develops their king’s knight and then their king’s bishop to attack Black’s king using the f7 square. On move 8, Black makes a mistake against check, moving their king from the f7 square to e8, rather than g8. Black made the decision in a second, but even if you spend longer calculating, the difference between Ke8 and Kg8 is not obvious.

White now sets up a mating net with (9. Bd3!), using the knight + bishop pattern but with a step of abstraction. Black is technically okay, but they must find the single good move (9… Bf7) and plug the hole in the castle walls! The only other moves that don’t result in mate is to move the queen, giving the Black king an escape square. Black misses the tactic and none of the non-losing moves are intuitive. They develop a knight – makes sense – but this hangs checkmate-in-two: (10. Bg6+ Bf7 11. Bxf7#). Good game, GG!

Game: https://www.chess.com/game/live/115998608835

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2024.07.29"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Utkarsho"]
[Black "Revan15482"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B15"]
[WhiteElo "1474"]
[BlackElo "1462"]
[TimeControl "60"]
[EndTime "6:26:15 PDT"]
[Termination "Utkarsho won by checkmate"]
[BlackUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/46607518.47de17b5.50x50o.d450a7673a5a.jpeg"]
[BlackCountry "2"]
[BlackTitle ""]
[WhiteUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/127993664.b7e476a7.50x50o.11f369c92b6d.jpg"]
[WhiteCountry "69"]
[WhiteTitle ""]

1. e4 {[%clk 0:01:00][%timestamp 1]} 1... c6 {[%clk 0:01:00][%timestamp 1]} 2.
d4 {[%clk 0:00:59.3][%timestamp 7]} 2... d5 {[%clk 0:00:59.9][%timestamp 1]} 3.
Nc3 {[%clk 0:00:58.9][%timestamp 4]} 3... dxe4 {[%clk 0:00:58.9][%timestamp 10]}
4. Nxe4 {[%clk 0:00:58.8][%timestamp 1]} 4... Nf6 {[%clk 0:00:58.5][%timestamp
4]} 5. Ng5 $5 {[%clk 0:00:58.2][%timestamp 6][%c_effect
g5;square;g5;type;Interesting;persistent;true] Caro-Kann Defense: Alien Gambit $1
A tricky move to sacrifice the knight on f7 [-0.3] $1} 5... h6 {[%clk
0:00:57.2][%timestamp 13][%c_arrow
c6c5;keyPressed;none;from;c6;opacity;0.8;to;c5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c5;keyPressed;shift;opacity;0.8;square;c5;persistent;false] The optimal move is
c5, which isn't obvious. The very natural looking move h6 is \"fine\" according
to the engine [-0.1], but we now see the very committal sacrifice in the Alien
Gambit $1} 6. Nxf7 $5 {[%clk 0:00:57.5][%timestamp 7][%c_arrow
g5f3;keyPressed;none;from;g5;opacity;0.8;to;f3;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f3;keyPressed;shift;opacity;0.8;square;f3;persistent;false,f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false][%c_effect
f7;square;f7;type;Interesting;persistent;true] Stockfish hates this move and the
chess.com analytic engine rates this a blunder at around worse than [-2].
However, in the Lichess community database, White has a commanding win ratio of
60\% vs 37\% $1 Wow $1} 6... Kxf7 {[%clk 0:00:56.3][%timestamp 9] And the idea
behind the Alien Gambit, as per many quick wins attacks, is to target the
opponent's weak f-pawn. In this gambit, the attack is \"full commitment\" as the
knight sacrifices itself with the compensation being that the White loses tempo,
has a weakness in the form of the hole on the f-file, and the loss of castling
rights, so the king remains exposed to the hole in the short- to medium-term.}
7. Nf3 {[%clk 0:00:57.1][%timestamp 4]} 7... Be6 {[%clk 0:00:55.2][%timestamp
11][%c_arrow
c6c5;keyPressed;none;from;c6;opacity;0.8;to;c5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c5;keyPressed;shift;opacity;0.8;square;c5;persistent;false] Understandable move,
but it's better for Black to try to immediately counterattack so that White
doesn't have the opportunity to gather their forces...} 8. Ne5+ $5 {[%clk
0:00:55.1][%timestamp 20][%c_effect
e5;square;e5;type;Interesting;persistent;true] Another immediate attack on
Black's king on f7 $1} 8... Ke8 $2 {[%clk 0:00:54.2][%timestamp 10][%c_effect
e8;square;e8;type;Mistake;persistent;true][%c_arrow
f7g8;keyPressed;none;from;f7;opacity;0.8;to;g8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
g8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g8;persistent;false] This is an
understandable move, but a mistake $1 It would have been best for the king to
escape to g8... [-0.4]} 9. Bd3 $1 {[%clk 0:00:53][%timestamp 21][%c_effect
d3;square;d3;type;GreatFind;persistent;true][%c_highlight
d3;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;d3;persistent;false] There is an impending
mating pattern between the bishop and knight, but it isn't obvious $1 Black has
only a single good move... $1} 9... Nbd7 $4 {[%clk 0:00:52.7][%timestamp
15][%c_effect d7;square;d7;type;Blunder;persistent;true][%c_highlight
d7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d7;persistent;false] And they don't find
it $1 [+M2]. The only good move for Black is Bf7 - plugging the weakness. Other
possible moves is to give the black king an escape square by moving the queen.}
10. Bg6+ $1 {[%clk 0:00:51.7][%timestamp 13][%c_effect
g6;square;g6;type;GreatFind;persistent;true][%c_highlight
g6;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;g6;persistent;false,e8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e8;persistent;false][%c_arrow
g6e8;keyPressed;none;from;g6;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false]} 10... Bf7
{[%clk 0:00:47.7][%timestamp 50]} 11. Bxf7# {[%clk 0:00:51.6][%timestamp
1][%c_effect e1;square;e1;type;Winner,e8;square;e8;type;CheckmateBlack][%c_arrow
e5f7;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;f7;persistent;false,f7e8;keyPressed;none;from;f7;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f7;persistent;false,e8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e8;persistent;false]
GG $1} 1-0