Checkmate in 8! Englund Gambit - chess noob Quick Wins! #1

#EnglundGambit 

This is a new series of short videos, to demonstrate very quick wins, usually within 10 moves!  As a beginner, you become aware of the Scholar's Mate and the Fool's Mate, but neither of these show up in real games.  However, there are tricky quick checkmates and wins that occur, even at the intermediate level of chess.

The video in the series is the trap that comes out of the Englund Gambit (1. d4 e5).  This gambit is dubious but forcing, and White must accept the gambit if they wish to keep the advantage.  This takes the game out of more typical Queen's Pawn Opening type positions.

The trap occurs on move 5.  To punish White's early move of their dark square bishop, our queen captures the b-pawn on b2.  Evaluation-wise, White should be completely winning with Stockfish rating it at almost [+3].  However, the completely natural looking response by White of (6. Bc3), which attacks the queen, and gives x-ray defence of the rook, is a terrible blunder [-6].  Our own dark square bishop springs into action (6... Bb4) and by an act of geometry, pins White's bishop to the king, meaning that they are now counter-attacked, isn't attacking the queen, and isn't providing x-ray defence to the rook.

White now plays another natural looking move (7. Qd2) which unpins the bishop.  Our bishop takes their bishop (7... Bxc3), pinning the White queen to the king.  White plays the third natural looking move, by taking our bishop with their queen (8. Qxc3).  This appears necessary as the queen is otherwise lost, and this move maintains the x-ray defence of the rook and it would almost seem that a queen trade would be the logical next move.

Except it's not, as (8... Qc1#) - checkmate on move 8!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/57036997735