Nova Daily - 31 January 2025

Hi!

Quite an interesting game today, with an interesting (though probably highly unsound) knight sac variation of the Two Knights CK, reminiscent of the Alien Gambit. It pays to look into this, as it may well not be the last time I've ever encountered it.

I think I dealt with the complications fairly well, but I'm interested to look into my sources to see what they come up with against this line.

Credit where credit's due: it appears to be a very fun line. Especially if black cooperates. https://www.chess.com/blog/CoachJKane/the-rise-of-the-caro-kane-variation 

Let's have a look at how to reel in the points.

All in all an interesting gambit. Sorry for all the miniatures I'll be foregoing, but nice to have it refuted so that I won't be surprised anymore.

What can I take away from this game:

1. Black has to fetch the bull by the horns and play 5...h6. If white sacrifices, the king has to go to g8, the pawn should go to e6, and black can slowly untangle, usually keeping two pieces for a rook along with a massive lead in development.

2. The 8.Ng6 move has a plethora of refutations. Black is spoilt for choice in this line, but I particularly like 8...Bg4 and 8...Bf5, choosing which venom to load the syringe with.

3. The key word in this game was focus. The deep calculation helped me find the refutation to an interesting variation.