Leonhardt Gambit | Majestic Queen Trap Line against the Scandinavian Defense!

#LeonhardtGambit #ScandinavianDefense #BotezGambit #brilliant 

I recently learnt of a rather devious queen trap line out of the Leonhardt Gambit against the Qa5-line of the Scandinavian Defense (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. b4).

After (4. Qxb4), rather than the typical gambit line of (5. Rb1), we play a couple of seemingly aggressive and dubious moves.  The apparently superficial attacks hide a cunning plan.  First, (5. Nb5) attacks the c7 square, which would come with a fork of Black's king and rook.  The single most common response for Black is (5... Qa5), a natural move with the queen back to the a5 square to defend the c7 square.

Next, White plays (6. Bc4), a rapid developing move that doesn’t seem threatening.  It's in a natural enough square that it might not raise suspicions. Black didn't see the danger and so played (6... c6) attacking my knight.  This move was a blunder as it the trap can now be sprung:

• a brilliant [+1.8] capture of the f7 pawn with a bishop sacrifice (7. Bxf7+ Kxf7)!
• the wayward queen provides another check and Black blocks the attack (8. Qh5+ g6)
• however, the knight now gives a check, with a discovered attack on the queen, and Black's queen is lost for the cost of two minor pieces! (9. Nd6+ exd6 10. Qxa5)

Here, White is completely winning at better than [+5].

My opponent, a fellow Aussie, is a great sport and plays on.  I maintain my advantage until move 21, when I made a game-ending Botez Gambit.  On the Chessnut Air board, I lost track of the diagonals and straight up hung my queen!  The evaluation went from better than [+7] to almost [-10]!

I try to play on, attempting to play an aggressive line and hoping for Black to make a mistake allowing me to promote a pawn.  However, they played solidly and being down two minor pieces made it very difficult.  On move 29 against a hopeless position [-18], I opted to resign.  GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/64625588757