Refuting the Fried Liver | Intro to the Ponziani-Steinitz Game

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have written a chess blog about openings. So Ryan's Awesome Blogs are BACK with another incredible opening for YOU to learn! Today, I will be sharing (aka learning) a epic opening weapon against folks who play the Fried Liver, which looks like this: 

Now about the opening, it is called "Ponziani-Steinitz Game". Black sacrifices a knight as early as MOVE 3 to unleash a world full of traps white can fall into. Even though Stockfish gives white a 2+ advantage, BUT I gurantee you white is gonna fall into one of your traps and ended up GIVING you a advantage! I will explain a total of 3 main lines and crutial variations inside of it. Now let us jump into it!

Starting Move Order/Line 1 Analyze:

The starting move order will look this 

Black takes the e4 pawn on move 4, sacrificing a knight. It also lets white fork the queen and the fork! So what is the point of this move? Are we just gonna let white fork us? Now let's see what happens if they do!

Here is some of the other variations you need to keep in mind!

You will win an absurd amount of games using all this if opponent forks you. But you do have to memorize what to do in certain positions. Whether it is defending with the queen or castle the king, you will need to know the appropriate response for each line.

Line 2 Analyze:

But what if black don't want the rook, but instead took the knight? This is what I am going to analyze here. You might be surprised to know that black is better, and on MOVE 5! Here is why.

In summary, your game plan will be castle Queenside, activate the 2 bishops and the queen, then go for moves like f5 to attack the kingside and try to win the game.

Line 3 Analyze:

If white doesn't takes anything but instead gives a check, the rest of the game might be a little tricky to handle and harder to play since white have played the best move.

Generally, your plan is to go for d4, and guard the king. After that, you just try to win the game.

And congrats! You have now successfully grasp the opening! All you need to do now is spend some time memorizing the lines and you are good to go! As a bonus, I also inclued a fun puzzle for you to solve! Try to find the best move for white here.

So that is it for this blog! I hope you enjoyed and learned something new. Please show support in me since I have spent a lot of time writing this by commenting, giving me a follow or engage with me. Hopefully this blog have inspired you to try out this opening and helped you win many games with the opening (probably you will win a lot)! And as always, see you in my next blog!