Englund Gambit | Rooks vs Queen!
#queenspawnopening #englundgambit #tactics
Some of my most interesting games often come from tournaments as the daily format allows longer time to think, and there is motivation from both me and the opponent to do well!
In this match, I had the Black pieces and White led with the Queen's Pawn Opening. As is usual for me, I respond with the Englund Gambit and they accept (1. d4 e5 2. dxe5). White declines from entering the trap lines, which is also fine for me as by move 5 (2... Nc6 3. Nf3 Qe7 4. e3 Nxe5 5. Nxe5 Qxe5), I win back the pawn and we enter a game where the evaluation is equal [0.00] and I've taken White out of Queen's Pawn Opening type positions.
We remain fairly equal and balanced in the rest of the opening and the early middlegame and on move 24, I disrupted the balance! I traded both my rooks for White's queen, and soon, we entered an endgame where along with pawns, it was White's rook pair vs my queen.
Often, the queen will outplay a rook pair and in part, it is simply easier to play with the queen than coordinate the rooks. This is especially the case when there are still pawns in play which can impede the mobility of the rooks.
This was demonstrated in this game. On move 27, we entered the endgame and the evaluation on move 28 was [-0.2] after I made an inaccurate move. However, my inaccuracies were rather less impactful than inaccuracies by White. My queen hunted the White king, finding forks and capturing some pawns. And then finally on move 44 with Qe4+, White's king had only two legal moves. One resulted in a forced loss of one of their rooks. The other was mate. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is to not be afraid of trading both your rooks for the opponent's queen!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/545389993
