Chess Openings
My Secret Gambit to Refute the Scotch Opening
This new gambit shakes the Scotch game and provides you with nasty traps
Nowadays, it seems almost impossible to develop new chess opening variations.
Nearly every line and variation on the board has its own name and is already theorized. Moreover, even unusual openings are played occasionally online by top-notch chess players — for example, b3 by Hikaru Nakamura and e3 by the world champion Magnus Carlsen.
In the age of advanced chess engines such as Stockfish and large online datasets of games, it’s rare to find a new variation that will catch your opponent off guard.
Nonetheless, I was fortunate to discover such an opening recently — “the anti-Scotch gambit”. I found it by intuition and zeroed in to develop further. This gambit brings back the initiative to black and removes the barb from the aggressive Scotch game.
Don’t confuse this gambit with the famous Scotch gambit for white, which is an entirely different setup starting with Bc4 when black takes on d4. The anti-Scotch gambit refutes the Scotch gambit, as white doesn’t get this setup in the first place.
I’m not a professional chess player, but I have played chess as a hobby for 25 years. Until my 20s, I played primarily over-the-board chess and won several local tournaments. Since then, I have played online on and off. In the last three years, I have improved my chess level and reached a rapid rating of 2000 on chess.com.
Using surprising openings like this new gambit was critical in beating slightly better players than me and eventually reaching my 2000 ELO goal.
The anti-Scotch gambit, as I call it, consists of various tactics with the black pieces, best for online chess. While it has been played a few times (only seven times, according to the chess.com database, besides my games, and 18 times in the Lichess database), I have yet to find any in-depth analysis of this setup.
So, I created one myself. Here it is:
In this post, I’ll outline the basic principles of the anti-Scotch gambit and provide you with an analysis of one of the games in which I used this gambit. It is only a glimpse, though. To fully understand the opening, you must watch my video above.
The Scotch opening has become widespread since former world champion Gary Kasparov used the opening to surprise his opponents. This way, he gained the initiative he wouldn’t have achieved in the highly theorized Ruy-Lopez opening. Several other great players have also started using the Scotch opening, which is now well-recognized and played online and over the board¹.
The Scotch game starts with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4, you might get that same setup in different moves order, such as from the Nimzowitsch defense, the Philidor defense, or the Englund gambit².
The theoretical premise for the Scotch game has been that 3..exd4 is indispensable. 3 ..d6 was considered a wrong move for black as white takes the e5 pawn, and black can’t take it in return. Otherwise, black would lose the option to castle and get a slightly worst position.
However, black can play d6 without capturing back that pawn on e5!
I tried once to develop my bishop to g4, which worked great. So that was the inception of this gambit. At the same time, I was surprised that no name appeared under this gambit in the database, so I presumed I had entered the unknown. This has made me even more excited to develop this gambit further.
I discovered I get various tactics for the sacrificed e5 pawn after white captures another pawn on d6. Based on my experience, most players online will do this to preserve the material they just gained.
If white doesn’t take on d6 and prefers to move Nc3, Bb5, or h3, he gets a relatively different setup. Black can still have decent gameplay, but most players online will take this pawn on d6. I played numerous games online using that gambit, and most of the time, they captured that pawn. So, in this post, I will focus on the main line.
Here I won’t cover the declined variations as it goes beyond the scope of the article, and I don’t want to exhaust you. However, watch my video above to learn more about the declined variations. There are dedicated timestamps in the video for just that.
Now, let’s continue to the exciting part. What happens after white takes on d6 and black takes it back with the bishop?
As you can see, for the missed pawn on the D file, black can place the rook in front of white’s queen after castling in the queenside. That is super dangerous for white, especially in online games when moves are played fast.
Let’s see how.
In my experience, the most common move here is 6. Be2 to revoke the pin of the knight on f3. However, now, black develops rapidly, lurking on white’s queen soon from the open file: 6… Qe7.
7. Nc3 is a widespread move, developing the knight. 7… Nf6 doubles the attack on e4 and prevents white knight from being on d5. Now white usually pins the knight on f6 with the bishop: Bg5. I often found myself on this setup, as this series of moves seems reasonable to white.
Objectively, white is equal and even slightly better, 0.2+ according to Stockfish evaluation. In human terms, though, the open D file with the rook versus the queen is tricky, and so are the active black pieces, as you can see in the diagram below.
If black castles short, you take on h2 discovered check with the bishop, and white loses the queen in the next move.
Decent players would spot that threat, though, and do something else. Yet, even then, many would fall into a different trap by moving their knight to d5. Their idea is clear and tempting: to double attack the pinned knight on f6 and block the dangerous open D file simultaneously. Yet this too is a mistake, as black takes with the queen on e4!
At this point, stockfish flipped the evaluation to -5.9 (for black favor), and it’s clear why.
Suddenly, the white knight on d5 is hanging as black threats a discovered check bishop to b4. The white knight is pinned to the queen and will be captured by the rook. At the same time, if white takes the knight on f6 with the bishop, black does the same check on b4, aiming to take the queen or the knight with tempi.
Let’s jump into a rapid game I played on chess.com to see how a practical game went for black in this position:
10. Nxf6 gxf6 11. Bxf6 Bb4+
So, here white took on f6 with the knight first and then with the bishop. The result is similar, though - the white position is falling apart with capturing his queen.
12. c3 Rxd1+
Suppose my opponent had protected the queen with 12. Nd2 instead, I would have captured it with my rook, which is also devastating for white. So either the queen would be taken, or I will checkmate on e2 if the white queen moves.
From now on, it was only a technique to ensure my win:
13. Rxd1 Re8 14. O-O Bd6 15. Rfe1 Qg6 16. Bh4 Rxe2 17. Rxe2 Bxf3 18. Kf1 Bxe2+ 19. Kxe2 Qh5+ 20. f3 Qxh4 21. g3 Qxh2+ 22. Ke3 Qxg3 23. b4 Ne5 24. a3 Qxf3+ 25. Kd4 Qxd1+ 26. Ke4 Qf3+ 27. Kd4 Qd3# 0–1
Here you can analyze this game yourself, and my other anti-scotch gambit games played on chess.com.
Final Thoughts on the Anti-Scotch Gambit
The anti-Scotch gambit is my new secret weapon with the black pieces. As the Scotch game has become highly popular, my gambit can help you surprise your opponent and take the initiative to your side.
I brought you the basic principles in this post, some traps, and one game to showcase my ideas in practice. The written article, though, provides just a glimpse. In the video guide version, you can dive deeper into this opening and master it entirely.
Nonetheless, this is only the beginning of the development of this exciting opening. There is still work to be done to estimate the true potential of this gambit. I guess there are slightly better variants for white that I haven’t covered in the video and other opportunities for black to attack white.
As with any tricky gambits like the Stafford gambit, for example, if white plays accurately all the way, he would probably get a slightly better end game as he is up a pawn. So, don’t use this gambit in a professional, classic over-the-board chess tournament. When they have time to think, professional Scotch game players will take advantage of the extra pawn and probably beat you.
Yet, rapid or blitz chess (and even more so bullet chess) is where this gambit can take off. The gambit enables you to undertake the initiative and attack white with the black pieces. This is remarkably better than defending against the Scotch opening or the aggressive Scotch gambit.
I hope you find this guide inspiring to dare counter-attacking Scotch game players. This secret gambit can upgrade your opening repertoire with the black pieces and help you improve your chess level online.
Feel free to comment with your thoughts. And if you tried the anti-Scotch gambit in your games, tell me how it has worked for you.
If you want to master more chess openings to surprise your opponents, and wish to grow your side hustling more efficiently, check my YouTube channel.
Footnotes
(1) The Scotch Game on Wikipedia
(2) An unfamiliar sideline of the Englund gambit suggests similar ideas to the anti-Scotch gambit. This sideline is called the Harltaub-Charlick gambit. However, it responds to 1. d4 and not 1. e4, and white often reacts with e3 somewhere after d6. That yields a slightly different gameplay.
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