I play in a couple of internet tournament leagues and try to make a habit of doing at least some opening preparation against my opponents before the game*. Common sense, I think. Usually, it just confirms that I’m in for a normal game, and gives me an idea of where to concentrate any drilling. But yesterday, it saved my ass, because my opponent played a very refutable, but nevertheless tricky gambit against 1. d4 called the Englund Gambit — 1. d4 e5.
Fortunately, because I was doing opening prep, I knew that he liked to play it, and I spent the hour before the game learning all about it from this awesome YouTube video. Black’s basic idea is to immediately create an open, tactical game, avoiding closed, positional play as it typical with 1. d4. And the opening has a bunch of traps, which, unless White plays precisely, will lead to tragic material loss.
So let’s say that White accepts the gambit (as he should). Black is going to immediately attack the pawn, usually with 2…Nc6, but also sometimes with 2…Qe7. In the latter case, a trap is already being set: if White defends the pawn with 3. Bf4, 3…Qb4+ is going to triple-attack the pawn on b2, the king and the bishop. 4. Qd2 looks like a good response, covering the bishop and blocking the check, but after 4…Qxb2 5. Qc3 (trying to save the cornered rook) Bb4, White can resign: his queen is pinned and lost, and the rook’s not going to make it either.
So White’s better off playing 2. Nf3 in all cases, avoiding this mess. Black will play 2…Qe7, preparing the same basic idea and now 3. Bf4 (or 3. Bg5, according to the computer) is possible. White will try the same trick: 3…Qb4+. Instead of playing the queen to d2, White needs to simply drop the bishop back with 4. Bd2, blocking the check and threatening the queen, who will respond with 4…Qxb2, threatening the Ra1.
How to respond? The wrong response is 5. Bc3, although it looks good at first. After 5…Bb4 6. Qd2 (6. Bxb4 Nxb4 and White has to give up the Nb1 to defend the rook) 6…Bxc3 7. Qxc3, Black has 7…Qc1#. Whatever happens, Black is winning.
So 5. Nc3 is White’s only response here, defending the rook with the queen and blocking the b4-e1 diagonal with another piece. Whew. It doesn’t end there, though… Next comes 5…Nb4, threatening 6…Nxc2+, where White’s only legal move is to give up the queen… This is easily prevented by 6. Nd4. Black can now respond with 6…c5 (6…a6 is also possible — you can learn about that in the video), and the defense of the c2 square is in dire straits. If White moves the knight, he loses his queen. What to do?
7. Rb1 and Black is now royally screwed. The queen has to retreat with 7…Qa3, and now White has threats of his own. 8. Ndb5 threatens the rook on a8 (and the Qa3) and gets his knight out of take. After 8…Qa5, White has several options, such as 9. a3 Nc6 10. Nd5 with a brutal discovered attack on the queen, or 9. e4, freeing the light-squared bishop and preparing some activity in the center. Black is going to lose material.
So here’s the game, with a few annotations. The beginning should be pretty familiar.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone else who has to face this gambit, and inspires a few people to add opening prep to their pre-game ritual.
* How to get your opponent’s games: On ICC, typing the ‘history <opponentname>’ command, or using the team4545league.org website (all league games are archived — just click on your opponent’s name to see them) will get you a list of your opponent’s game. For Playchess, you need Chessbase (Fritz doesn’t offer this feature). After logging onto the server, you can get a database of recent games for any player on the server.