Spam Log #3: Queen’s Gambit — but not actually

OK, I admit this series is just another version of Illion’s blogs. But I just like writing stuff :)

Answer to last quiz

You play 2...Nh6!! which is also the only good move. Firstly, white is threatening both Nf5 and Nb5, both of them are very dangerous. We have to make our own threats. Nf5 threatens e7 and g7, so it’s more important (Nxe7 is mate). Nh6 defends the f5 square and creates your own threat of Ng4. If white is greedy and plays 3.Nb5??, you can play Ng4 threatening mate; after f3/f4 Nf2!, white can’t avoid Nxd1#.

Queen forks and skewers

The queen is very powerful in atomic. If your opponent doesn’t develop pieces, you can often fork and win material or give checkmate. Here are some examples: (Randomly selected top games from lichess opening database)

As I briefly mentioned, after 1.e4 or 1.e3, there is a direct mate threat with Qh5 (threatening f7, forcing g6) and Qd5 (forking d7 and f7, both exploding the black king!). c5 or Nc6 can’t defend this threat, so they are losing moves.

In atomic, a fork doesn’t need to involve two pieces, sometimes it just involves a piece and a square (or more squares). After e4 f6??, the same queen maneuver still works, forking d7 pawn and the f7 square. Black can’t stop Qf7. Whenever the queen is near your king, it’s bad for you, unless you can connect kings or explode opponent’s king in 1.

There is a saying in Nf3 f6 games, "knight after knight, pawn after pawn". (Not always true) If you move your knight after your opponent moves a pawn, bad things could happen. Here, white sacrifices the knight to open up the queen. (black has to accept the sacrifice, otherwise Nd7 and black can’t avoid mate) Then Qh5 forcing g6, and Qg5 is a skewer, either Qxe7 or Qxd8 is mate! (The fork Qd5 also works)

To prove what I said was true in most cases, in Nf3 c3 games the queen can take a different path to fork black’s pieces. Qf4 is already a fork (f8 and c7), but rather than taking the material, white can finish black off with a skewer. Whenever you play Nh6, the d8-h4 diagonal is weak, so be careful!

Black also has some fork tricks in the opening. If white is not careful and plays Nf7 too early in Nf3 e5 opening, black can win material with Qh4 and Qc4, forking e2 and c2. Be careful — check out your surroundings before you move! (Qd4 looks good, but it’s near the e5 pawn which is under fire, Nxe5 wins for white.) So check out all pieces that are under fire, and don’t put your queen next to them.

I’ve said that e6 is the best response to 1.Nc3. What if white goes for the fork Nb5? Well, black can now bring the queen out, this time the correct fork is Qh4 and Qe4 since d4 is covered! Qe4 also forks c2 and e2, and black wins material. (White is not completely lost, but black has at least achieved equality and is playing for a win.)

In the opening, most of the queen forks and skewers start with Qh5 (or Qh4), forcing g6, then Qg5 or e5 or d5 or c5. (Sometimes Qb5 and Qxb7 is good, especially in e3 Qh5 games, but I don’t like it, I like my queen) So make sure everything is defended before allowing Qh5.

Queen maneuvers

Sometimes, the queen just needs to find a way into your opponent’s position.

I mentioned 1.e4 e5 is bad, it’s because of this particular maneuver. Qh3! threatens the weak d7 pawn after e5, and black has no defense. The white queen just comes in anyway. (If black plays d5 or d6, Qd7 is still checkmate)

Nh3 g5?? is a very bad move. It gets mated in all variations. Why? White just opens up the queen, and guess what, if black does nothing, Qh5 is mate next move. It’s similar to the fool’s mate in standard. Nf6 just gets taken, and even if Qh5 can be stop, the maneuver Qf3 to Qd5 can’t!

A similar maneuver is the refutation to h5 in the "spam" opening. Playing the spam opening sometimes to learn its defense is OK, just don’t spam it — don’t play it every game. It can hinder your progress. f6 and h5 weakens the e8-h5 diagonal and the queen waltzes to g6 for the win.

This maneuver is called the hook, it’s a theoretical theme in the "spam" opening after the e6 c6 defense (Stockfish Defense). But it is even better in Nh3 Nc3 lines so black should not accept the knight sacrifice (Black can try 4...Bb4, for example). The idea is after sacrificing the queen, black’s b5-e8 diagonal is weak and Bb5 wins back the queen with interest; in this case black is simply mated with a knight fork.

This shows sometimes a piece sacrifice is necessary to open lines for the queen. In the exchange variation of the Nf3 Nd4 opening, the e8-h5 diagonal is very weak and black needs to protect it, otherwise this will happen — a bishop can either win material or deflect the vital g7 pawn for a winning queen invasion.

Another example in the same line. Qh5-Qh6 maneuvers are very common in middlegames, so be careful when you move the dark square bishop out!

The final example shows that: don’t give up your queen too easily, especially in time trouble. Get the queen into your opponent’s position instead. This is of course a joke game.

Shield

This is not drama alert, I’m sorry. I’ll just be objective. HidaS won the shield, 2 points ahead of LearningVariants. Is HidaS a sandbagger? Did they get help from other players? Time will tell.

But at least we can analyze some games from the shield. After all, we haven’t analyzed any full game! I’ll choose one according to the theme. More games will be analyzed in the later Spam Logs.

Here we have the exchange variation of Nd4 opening (Trojanknight opening according to the EAO and it’s the main line theory of the fianchetto variation. You only need to know, after the Nd4 exchange opening, g6 and Bh6 is a good way to defend against white’s queen threats. White found a good plan of h4, h5, "putting it in h" and threaten the important g6 pawn.

11.e5! is a very strong move that gives white the advantage, with the threat of Qd3 and black’s kingside is too weak. In this opening, both side tries to get the queen into action! Black is already in trouble. After 11...e6 blocking the pawn, 12.Nb5! is another good move preparing for Qd3. Black has nothing better than accepting the knight, and now 13.Ba6!! wins because both the knight and the b-pawn are vital to defend against Qd3-Qb5! Sadly white didn’t find it (I can’t find it in a thousand years) and went for the idea of Bb5 and Qf3.

After 14...f5! black just barely holds the position together, but black chose activity — 14...Rg8?? It’s now a perfect example in this blog. How to maneuver the queen into black’s position? The move is 15.Qe3! threatening Qh6. Qa5+ c6 does nothing. If black regrets and moves the rook back to h8, it’s too late. Qg3 and there are no more pieces to block the queen from Qg7 and mate next move. Black has no other choices, Rg5 can be taken (exf6, exploding it). But white missed this golden chance and played 15.Qc3??. At first glance this looks winning too, but black has a queen too — 15...Qa5!! pinning the white queen! Now 16.Ba6 is still OK for white, but white, apparently shocked from black’s response, chose the inferior 16.g3 and white’s position fell apart after 16...Qb4! 17.Bd7? Qxb2. The endgame is simple for black with one more rook, so white resigned the game.

When you have a queen, there is always possibility of a win. Be extremely careful when defending against a queen invasion!

Quiz

Now it’s your time to outsmart low depth Stockfish! After the moves 1.Nf3 f6 2.c4 Nh6, low depth Stockfish gives an evaluation of -0.6. Is it a correct evaluation? What should white play? Hint: what’s the difference between c4 and c3 (which is an example above)? Is there anything similar? Can you achieve the same goal by similar maneuvers?

Esejiva ti opi fepe ovi eca diyove,
tetijoda ti vutako au enaha.
Ie zokepi hipazemiqe dinova,
eqoja uzo mege ejiva enata!

Don’t get tilted, have fun :)