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Early Queen Attacks, How to Stop Them
If you're wondering who those people are, Nelson and Wayne are known for their early queen attacks.

Early Queen Attacks, How to Stop Them

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Early queen attacks are something beginners struggle with defending against them and it can lead to the scholar's mate, or the 4 move checkmate. Including me, I've had a hard time avoiding early attacks from Nelson, a bot who would always bring his queen out early. I've watched a few videos about those early queen attacks and they've helped. In this blog post, it will tell you easy tips to play against early queen attacks.

Firstly... here's an opening that could lead to the scholar's mate. The Wayward Queen Attack according to chess.com's engine, is not good for white.

Then, it's all about avoiding the queen checkmating you with that scholar's mate. After 2. Qh5, you shouldn't kick the queen with g6! That's a blunder because it creates a fork! You're gonna lose your rook and from there, you'll have a hard time.

The move you should play after is 2... Nc6. It defends the e5 pawn and develops a piece. 

Although there are more ways to counter the Wayward Queen Attack like the Kiddie Countergambit which I won with that opening as black, 2... Nc6 is your best bet.

To continue the setup for scholar's mate for white... white would play 3. Bc4. The point is to aim at the weak f7 pawn because it's guarded only by the king.

Figure out the next move here. Think about it...
If you were to say 3... g6, you would be correct! For all of you that you should develop like 3... Bc5 or 3... Nf6, or some of you saying that there's a fork on the way, you probably forgotten that one, the scholar's mate is coming because of 3. Bc4 and two, 2... Nc6 was for guarding the e5 pawn to avoid the fork.

That was for the people who said 3... Bc5 or 3... Nf6. 3... Nf6 might sound reasonable because attacking the queen but it doesn't guard or block the f7 pawn.

For those who said 3... g6, you're right because you kick out the queen and you avoided the scholar's mate... for now.
The final part of this article is when we get to this position:
When the queen retreats to f3, still threatening to do an easy mate. There are two options:
  • Play Qf6, trying to trade queens:

Or to develop with Nf6:

That's all for now! Hope you liked it and please tell me what d4 openings you want me to explain, how I could make this better, one thing you liked about this post, send me a friend request, follow me and share this to all your beginner friends out there!

Also, go check out @JCH2021's blog about playing against the Nelson bot on chess.com!

https://www.chess.com/blog/JCH2021/how-to-beat-the-nelson-bot

Honorable Mentions:

@DefenderPug2 for requesting this topic

GothamChess video about early queen attacks! (great video btw)

GothamChess's Very Nice Video!

and of course, chess.com!

Stay on the bright side y'all. Don't forget to friend request me if you like and give me a request for a blog topic!

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