Smith-Morra Gambit | Romance in the Sicilian Defense ⚡ Quick Wins #102
#sicilian #smith-morra #brilliant #quickwins #romantic
Today we have another chess noob Quick Wins, and once again in the Smith-Morra Gambit Accepted against the Sicilian Defense (1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3)! Let’s go!
Black makes a common mistake on turn 6 with (6… e5?). This is a mistake that is especially common for players who are beginners and less familiar with the Sicilian Defense. Looking at the Lichess community database, it is the most common response for lower rated players, and this is understandable. After all, it doesn’t seem that meeting e4 with e5 could be wrong!
One of the concepts in chess though is that every step forward with a pawn has an irreversible consequence. This is because pawns can never move backwards. When pawns move forward, it can weaken the defence of the squares behind the pawn. For Black, moving their e-pawn to e5 weakens the defence of e6, and this can be exploited by the Smith-Morra Gambit player with one of its tactical motifs with Qb3!
This is available for White as the c-pawn had been traded away in the opening gambit, and after (7. Qb3), White has a very nice queen-bishop battery down the light square diagonal, staring at Black’s f7-pawn!
In this game, this forced Black’s queen to come out to play (7… Qe7) to provide defence, and as per the recent article on punishing early bad queens, it creates the environment for many fun tactical threats!
I play (8. Nd5) immediately, a great square for the queen’s knight and forcing Black to move their queen a second time. A turn later, Black attempted to counterattack with (9… Na5?!), which seems to fork my queen and bishop, but it doesn’t work! Simply, after (10. Qc3 Nxc4 11. Qxc4), my queen and d5-knight had a powerful attack on Black’s c7-square!
On turn 12, notice that White is fully developed with their king safely castled. Black, on the other hand, has almost no development apart from their queen, with all their other pieces still on the back rank! In the position, I missed an amazing attack, a brilliant knight sacrifice (12. Nxe5!!) which I cover in the video and in the PGN. Instead, I played the sensible improving move (12. Rd1) and set up a future discovered attack on Black’s queen (with Nc7+).
Sometimes, the threat from a tactic is enough! Black cracked under the pressure and blundered their queen with (12… Qe6??). With (13. Nc7+!), a royal fork, Black resigned having suffered emotional damage. Good game, GG!
Game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/2mStvCr7e6
