Full Game:

I played the black pieces.

To start, white opted into a king’s gambit. It is a very dubious opening for white to the point that top player to not play it. For white, the aim is to keep black’s king in the center of the board, open up the position, and attack the king early into the game. However, it is a gambit. If this attack fails, black is potentially left with a very solid position, an extra pawn, or both. In this case, I knew how to defend against my opponent’s attack. This made the first six or so moves very easy to counter against. In the first 6 moves, I was able to take a pawn, defend against white attempts to retake my pawn, developed a pawn and knight to challenge a potential attack in the center, and kept everything else solid. Look through the first 6 moves of the game.

On move 7, I think my opponent’s brain stopped working. Black played Nxg5 putting it directly in line with my queen. On the next move, I quickly captured the piece.

From there, the game developed normally. My opponent moved more pieces from their starting position. I castled queenside and developed my bishop. The next important moment was on move 12 where I played f5. Initially, this does not seem like an important move, but it serves many purposes. Firstly, it attacks white’s stronghold over the center squares. f5 directly attacks the e4 pawn. In the case that white takes the f5 pawn, I can just take the bishop in e3 with my queen. Secondly, it gets rid of a weak pawn. The f-pawn was isolated and thus would have been hard to defend, especially with black’s rook already looking directly at it. While this did not change the dynamic of the game, not playing f5 could have changed the dynamic against me later into the game.

The next interesting moment was on move 14 when black played Bg5. My opponent probably thought that they had won an exchange. However, I spotted a game-winning tactic. Since the king was exposed to the a7-g1 diagonal, I was able to play Bxd4+. This unleashed the rook to attack the bishop, making it 2 attackers to white only 1 defender. At the end of this set of moves, I was up 2 entire bishops in material. Scroll through the moves until move 17.

The game then developed as I tried to take advantage of the extra bishops. I doubled my rooks on the g-file and put lots of pressure on the g2 pawn. To protect the pawn, white played g3, but this move lost the game. I played Bc6 and pinned white’s knight to the king. White tried to hold on to the knight, but I put lots of pressure on the position to the end that I capture the knight for free. At this point, white resigned. Move from this position until the end of the game.

Final position:

0-1

Key takeaways:

Don’t play the king’s gambit as white. It’s a very dubious opening and is easily refuted by anyone that has spent any time looking at the opening.

Keep your king as protected as possible behind pawns. Most openings techniques use castling to keep the king safe. If your opponent moves the pawn in front of their king, look for ways to exploit the position and attack!

Two bishops are better than one. Using these long-range snipers to look toward your opponent’s king can be deadly.

Full Game

I played the white pieces.

Black opened the game with a gambit. More specifically, by move 4, the position is an Indian Defense: Budapest Defense, Adler Variation. At the highest level of chess, this gambit is not played by black at all as it gives white the temporary extra pawn and it is hard to get back the pawn without a forcing set of moves that lead to a slight advantage for white. In this is position in 2021 as white, I am 5-1 which shows that even at a somewhat high level, this gambit does not work if white memorizes the best moves in the position.

However, in similar positions, white can be in deep trouble if they are not careful with their move choice or more order. One example of this is provided below and you should scroll through the example moves to see the common tactic in the position.

In my game, moves 6 through 9 are not completely forced, but they are the most common moves in the position, and it prevents losing to the basic tactic. Move through move 4 to 9 to see the line.

The next crucial moment of the game was on move 14. I considered 2 moves, c5 and b4. b4 has the obvious benefit of protecting the central pawn that could be very important later in the game, but also, if black trades pawns would allow me to challenge on the a-file. c5, however is a little less obvious. c5 directly challenges the d6 pawn which needs to be protecting the knight on e5. It also would allow me to put lots of pressure on the knight or d6 pawn depending on black’s next move. I played 14. c5. In response, black moved their knight back to c6. I played Rfd1 to continue putting pressure on the pawn but also to get my rook to a semi-open file that holds many advantageous tactical ideas. Look at white’s move 14 and 15.

The game developed normally as I made sure I didn’t get mated on the back rank with 18.h3. On move 19, black made an offer to trade rooks, but I declined in favor of keeping the tension on the board and I just simply protected it with Rc1. I felt that a rook remained on the c-file would allow me to either ruin black’s pawn structure or simply win the c pawn.

The game transitioned into a position in which the black knight was captured, allowing me to win the pawn advantage, and a set of rooks were traded off the board. In the position below, white is completely dominating. The computer gives an evaluation of +4.4 which essentially means white’s position is worth 4.4 pawns up over black’s position.

Just a few short moves later, black’s position crumbled which led to their resingnation. The only way for black to prolong the game would be to capture the rook and give up the queen, which would leave me with a massive advantage.

1-0

Key Takeaways:

Gambit lines can be dubious or lead to unsound positions so be careful when playing them or playing against them.

Attacking a centeral piece, directly or indirectly, with a pawn is usually a good idea.