Vienna Game Main Line | My Underbaked Brilliance! 😂
#vienna #viennagambit #mainline #almostbrilliant #underbaked
Currently, I'm rated almost 1300 ELO in rapid, but have previously been in the mid-1400s. I've come to terms with this, as I know that my loss of rating has been in part due to playing questionable moves for curiosity's sake and for fun, and in part due to playing when tired or impatient! 😅 However, at this beginner-intermediate level, there is still much to learn!
This game demonstrates sparks of brilliance but surrounded by a decidedly underbaked shell! Let's begin...
I had the White pieces, and my opponent brought me into the Vienna Game Main Line (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 d5), but then immediately went down a line that I knew was inaccurate (3. fxe5 Ng4?). I knew that this was very likely a mistake (and it was - Stockfish evaluates it at [+3]), but even after staring at the position for a minute, I wasn't sure how to punish it. A risk in the Vienna Game Main Line for White is always with the spectre of Qh4+. I thought I was fine, but I couldn't shake a sense of doubt. Typically for White, it's good to try to bolster/take control of the centre with pawns, so d4 looked right... But my mind turned back to Qh4+... What to do?
Eventually, I chickened out from d4 (Stockfish's preferred move) and played the timid and conservative (5. Nf3) to defend the h4 square. White is still ahead, but it placed me in the wrong mindset. Black continues the attack (5... d4) and having been spooked, I compound my mistake by playing another conservative and defensive move with a backwards knight move to bunker down (6. Ne2?). Black was now ahead [-0.7] but needed to consolidate rather than continue the attack.
Luckily for me, their further intemperate (6... d3?) justified my "bunkered down" defence [-0.7 → +2.6]. For Black, their d-pawn is now simply offside and impossible to defend. We trade pawns and Black's queen comes out to play but is immediately forced home with me gaining tempo and development (7. cxd3 Qxd3? 8. Nc3 Qd8).
At the end of move 10, we both short castle and enter the middlegame. I'm now comfortably ahead with better development, and up a point of material. Nice!
Everything was going well up to move 14. I force trade one of my knights for Black's bishop, giving me the advantage of the bishop pair. But on move 15 (and 16), I miss a tactic that Black had. One of the consequences of moving the f-pawn in the Vienna Gambit lines, is that after short castling, the king is potentially exposed along the dark square diagonal. It's something to keep an eye on, and one area of improvement identified in my "year in review" is I'm not so great with my vision of diagonals!
Black finds a killer move (16... Qc5+!) with an absolute fork of my king and bishop. 😖 Ouch!
However, I felt that I still had chances. Firstly, I played (18. e7!?). My logic is that my passed pawn was my greatest asset, and pushing it forward took it out immediate capture, and onto the seventh rank. The engine thinks that this was a mistake as in very accurate play by Black, the pawn cannot promote. However, I think this was the correct human move. As expected, Black blocks the promotion with (18... Re8). I expected this and played (18. Ba3), defending the pawn and Black now plays (19... Nc6??) to develop their knight and add pressure on the pawn. But a blunder! Why?
Here, I find a brilliant move (20. Ne5), but my brilliance was underbaked! The move is brilliant as the knight move opens the f-file for my rook, and f8+ will force a back rank checkmate-in-2 line! However, the knight on e5 simultaneously attacks Black's queen. Black cannot avoid mate and save their queen at the same time!
However, the almost three minutes I took thinking about this move was encumbered by my problem with vision down diagonals! Although I saw the very strong Rf8+ move, in my mind's eye, I didn't grasp that after the pawn promotes to queen on the f8 square, this is still defended by the a3-bishop along the dark square diagonal! So, I had created an extra convolution of deflecting Black's king on g8 to the defence of the f8 square through a queen sacrifice! I thought myself clever, but this was unnecessary and kind of dumb... 😅
Black hunts my king with knight and queen for several moves as both of us miss this tactic. However, after (25... Qh6??), I saw the beautiful simplicity of the attack. With Black's queen on the h6 square, my queen sacrifice on h7 idea was impossible, and so I recalculated the position anew with fresh eyes. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is that brilliant attacks don't come from nowhere. A position with longer term tactical attacking chances, even if initially speculative, e.g., my bishop along the dark square diagonal, the semi-open f-file, creates the opportunities for a winning attack!
