SenseiDanya (1512) vs uuuuuuuuuuuh (1224)

1500Episode 08 · 1-0

During the gameIn the review

  1. Italian Game: Traxler, Bishop Sacrifice Line
  2. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6
  3. 3. Bc4 The Italian as a rite of passage Opening The Italian, picked out loud and with a reason: it is the rite of passage, the opening beginners play and mostly do not know how to play. Played properly it stops being a run-of-the-mill developing scheme and becomes genuinely dangerous.
  4. 3...Nf6 4.Ng5
  5. 4... Bc5 The Traxler, and the reflex it feeds on Opening The Traxler, named for the Czech player Karel Traxler, and the whole point of it is what White is now tempted to do. To an untrained eye Nxf7 simply wins: it forks queen and rook, the queen has to move, the rook goes, and even if the knight is lost later that is a rook for a knight. The detail that undoes it is a counter-sacrifice - ...Bxf2+. If what you want against the Fried Liver is a sound game rather than a trap, the move is ...d5, and he says outright that sound is the right preference even when the trappy line is tempting. The verdict on the trap: the Traxler is bad if White knows to take on f7 with the bishop. It is built on the reflex of taking with the knight, which a great many players do automatically.
  6. 5. Bxf7+ Refuting a trap with the boring move Opening The refutation is anti-climactic, and that is the recommendation: take on f7 with the bishop rather than the knight. It arrives with check, so the counter-sacrifice on f2 is simply not available. The comparison that explains why this works where Nxf7 does not: the knight stays on g5, and on g5 it has a job - it defends e4. Play the Traxler's ...Nxe4 against this version and the knight is given away for nothing.
  7. 5...Kf8
  8. 6. Bb3 Type-2 undefended: retreat before ...h6 comes Piece play The second anti-climactic move, and the one that needs explaining. Developing normally would leave the bishop on f7 as a type-2 undefended piece - one defender, the knight on g5 - and ...h6 chases that defender off. So the bishop steps back to a square a pawn of his own defends, and the trouble never starts.
  9. 6...Ke8
  10. 7. O-O A move that failed in one position is not dead General Nxf7 is available again here, and it would transpose straight back into the Traxler, so it stays unplayed. Castling instead: a pawn up, Black's castling gone, and not one shred of attacking chance left on the board. d3 comes next to cement the pawn and put f7 under threat again. Then the principle he stops to state, because it is worth more than the position: a move that does not work in one place is not dead everywhere, and burying it is how blunders happen at every level. The honest verdict, offered to an opponent who has just resigned: much worse, not lost. After ...Rf8 there is no fork, and Black is a pawn down with a king that cannot castle.
  11. Black resigned
End of episode 08 · 1-0 ← 07. vs MidnightRhino (1702)All games at 150009. vs Vilhaze (1640) →