Play Chess Openings: Roman Dzindzichashvili Scotch Gambit

Monday, April 8, 2013

Roman Dzindzichashvili Scotch Gambit

The word "Roman" has many meanings. In history, Roman is the Empire that conquered large portions of Europe, Asia, and Africa just before the birth of Christ. In building, Roman refers to an architectural style. In math, Roman is a set of numerals. In language, Roman is an alphabet. In religion, Roman is the Catholic Church, whose new Pope Francis seems impressive to me. A frisky young man might be said to have Roman hands and Russian fingers. But in chess, Roman means Grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili.

Roman Dzindzichashvili is famous for his opening repertoire which he presents in many videos available on Chess4Less.com and in two books: Chess Openings for White Explained and Chess Openings for Black Explained. These books Roman prepared and wrote with GM Lev Alburt, GM Eugene Perelshteyn, and Al Lawrence. All these guys obviously put in a lot of work on these books which cover Roman's basic repertoire.

One of Dzindzi's favorite openings is the Scotch Gambit. This opening is maybe not the strongest, but it is playable and tricky. In some ways, this is like the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. But in the Scotch Gambit, White usually gets his pawn back fairly soon. Below is my game vs "sequitamorena" which ended in a quick mate when Black missed a tactic.

Sawyer - sequitamorena, ICC 3 0 Internet Chess Club, 12.01.2013 begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 Ne4 6.0-0 [Other ideas are 6.Qe2 Nc5 7.c3; or 6.Bd5 Nc5 7.0-0] 6...Be7 7.Re1 Nc5 [7...d5 8.exd6 Nxd6 9.Bd5=] 8.Nxd4 Nxd4 [8...0-0 9.Nc3+/=] 9.Qxd4 Ne6 10.Qg4 0-0 11.Bh6 f5? [Fortunately for me in this blitz game I realized in time that Black just pinned his Ne6. 11...d5! 12.exd6 Bf6 13.c3 Qxd6 14.Be3=]