Ponziani Opening | BRILLIANT WIN after losing streak!
#ponziani #greekgift #brilliant
I played this game after an 8-game losing streak playing after midnight! I made the mistake of thinking that I'll win a game before going to bed, and then the combination of being tired and a bit irritable, got trapped for hours! Nonetheless, it's all part of the adventure and without that experience, I don't think that I would have had this game, or the high at the win!
My opponent led with the Ponziani Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3) but was probably not very experienced with it. The Ponziani is a somewhat suboptimal opening, but it can be very tricky to play against. Historically, I've not performed well against it, so was feeling a bit apprehensive, especially this was game 9 after 8 losses!
With Black, the best way to respond against the Ponziani is to immediately take the centre with (3... d5) which is consistent with opening principles. We trade in the centre, and then White developed their bishop (5. Be2) with the aim to rapidly castle. I don't know much if any Ponziani theory, but I knew that the strength of the Ponziani was in launching immediate threats and attacks. So, I recognised that the relatively slow and conservative approach by White was probably a mistake, and Stockfish agrees in the evaluation. This was apparently [-1.6], surprisingly bad.
The reason is that I have a strong attack with an immediate e4, attacking White's knight and taking advantage of the fact that White has limited control of the centre. I don't see this attack for several moves and opt to develop my dark square bishop first. White doesn't recognise the threat either and that allows my to uncork massive pressure with (7... e4) a couple of moves later! In essence, I have a Greek gift sacrifice pending with a possible mating attack.
White attempts to counterattack my queen with their bishop, but this doesn't work as it doesn't defend against the Greek gift tactic, and essentially gives me a point of tempo moving the queen to an attack position on the h-file, and an immediate checkmate threat on h2. White thinks for over a minute and attempt to block the h-file with the knight. The Greek gift sacrifice is unleashed (9... Bxh2+)! The only way White can avoid checkmate is sacrificing their queen for my knight. They refuse to do this and so, hang checkmate on move 12. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is that if you play the Ponziani Opening, you need to understand the tactical ideas of that opening or else, it can end very badly.
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/85170223027
