Danish Gambit 5...Qe7

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Nordlandia

How to play as white here?

Dolphin27

This is the Chigorin defense to the Danish Gambit accepted, named after the great Russian Grandmaster Mikhail Chigorin. He first used it in a game vs Jacques Mieses in Hanover 1902. This game was annotated by Tartakower in his "500 Games of Master Chess" which I believe you can find and read for free on google books. Mieses (probably surprised and provoked by this audacious move) made a few serious inaccuracies in the opening and ending up losing the game. A year later Chigorin played it again in the Russian National Championships against Moscow city champion Abram Rabinovich and won. This game is annotated by Chigorin himself in the rare book "Third Russian National Chess Tournament, Kiev 1903" of which I believe only 1,500 copies were made. A year later in 1904 he played it again vs Jacques Mieses at Cambridge Springs. In this game Mieses played the opening better but Chigorin still won in 54 moves.

It wasn't that Chigorin was a much stronger player than Mieses, they actually had a tied score against each other of 5 1/2 points to 5 1/2 points.

So that's the history, now for how to play against it there are just a few things you need to know. If you remember these few things then you should for sure have enough compensation for the pawns and get a great position out of the opening. First, with 5...Qe7 Black is setting up a one move threat to play 6...Qb4+ and win the hanging bishop on c4. So as White you need to play 6.Nc3. After that, you need to be aware that the queen on e7 is pinning the White e-pawn, so after a move like 6...c6, you need to play 7.Nge2 to prevent the positional threat of 7...d5. Next, you must remember not to try and castle queenside in this variation. The setup of Qc2 and 0-0-0 was used a lot in the Danish Gambit games of old, but computer engines will show you 0-0-0 is rarely a good idea in the Danish Gambit accepted. This is how Mieses messed up in the first game vs Chigorin. Stronger is to simply castle kingside as Mieses did in the second game. After that it's very, very hard for Black to complete their development. The Queen is blocking the bishop and Black can't play g6 in such a position, that leaves trying to castle queenside, but if an opposite side castling position were to arise that alone would give compensation for the missing b and c pawns in the form of open lines to attack. If the Black king tries to stay in the center then look for the thematic e5 push to open lines. Also if Black plays c6 and b5 early then a bishop sacrifice is possible on b5, such a sacriifce was actually recommended by Paul Keres and I believe it gives great practical chances, but it's not even necessary, the bishop can just go back and Black is still going to have serious problems with completing their development. This isn't a critical variation and you should be happy to see this as White.

Nordlandia

For in-depth anaylse - http://nb.lichess.org/q0sqIREm#42
bezeee
 

Thanks Dolphin.  Very helpful.