I Played the Stafford Gambit in a Rated Tournament

welcome back everyone I just got back from Vegas a few days ago and I'm sure most of you know that I played a pretty strong classical tournament in Vegas but maybe what you didn't know is I also played a blitz tournament it was a Walter Brown Memorial Blitz part of the Vegas chess festival and I actually filmed all my games in the tournaments and I want to share my very first game of that tournament in this video and the game features a Stafford Gambit and what I'm gonna do is show the footage and then just talk about my thoughts as a footage place now I was playing a player who I didn't recognize and I didn't actually know her rating until after the game her rating is about 20 50 feet a it's probably good that I didn't know this because if I knew she was this high rated maybe I would not have played the Stafford Gambit but we will see uh me delve into one of my favorite openings I'll also say that I was maybe like the 10th or 11th seed in the tournament uh there are a lot of strong Grand Masters playing Hans Neiman was a top seed and then there was Ilya niznik and version of kobian but let's hop into this game okay we shake hands and the game begins so E4 E5 F3 and I am going for the Stafford and we see my opponent play pretty quickly which kind of gave me a sense of discomfort but of course I'm still in my prep Bishop C5 and with this moment of hesitation I realized my opponent probably isn't so well prepared Bishop E2 is one of the more common moves and I was debating between Queen D4 and H5 but I do play Queen D4 hitting F2 and after castling now I play H5 now I want to play Knight G4 and set up a lot of attacking ideas she plays D3 I played Knight G4 and now of course I'm hitting F2 and there's really not too many ways for white to defend here the best move which I knew during the game is Bishop takes G4 but it is hard to concede the bishop pair and there are some other moves as well of course Queen E1 is a main alternative so it's feeling good up uh more time than I started with almost up a minute and she does play Queen E1 so defending F2 now the drawback of this move is black is able to keep initiative and during the game I was trying to remember what I've studied before but I do play Queen E5 hitting the pawn on each two threatening made in one well if white takes some Knight I take back and then there's just a massive attack so for this reason she plays Pawn to G3 and I pretty quickly play Pawn to each War so trying to get all the pieces involved Rook Knight and queen after Bishop F4 Queen E7 there's still some pressure against whites especially with this Pawn tension and I am having ideas I was trying to calculate while my point was thinking I was calculating ideas of taking King takes and takes and I wasn't entirely sure what white is going to try here to defend because there's just so much pressure from so many different directions really there's so many pieces that contribute to Black's attack so she takes the knights I take back do notice that we were playing with non-weighted pieces so there were a few moves where it was easy to just knock pieces over and when this happens you have to adjust them before uh completing your move so Bishop E3 was played and now What's Happening Here is white doesn't have a lights for Bishop and with this structure light squares are very weak on the king side so I was trying to figure out how to effectively take advantage of this and there are perhaps a few candidate moves but I decide for Bishop F3 dreaming of teleporting my queen to G2 and I'm not too far away want to play Queen E6 and queen H3 now she takes a bishop I take back I was actually calculating this line because it's a natural continuation for whites to now play the move Queen E3 that I very quickly play Queen H5 and the queen is so well placed on H5 defending the bishop and creating the battery with now the queen and the rook and with upon tension still remaining there's no way for white to keep the H file closed and there's a big threat of taking and queen H2 checkmates and we can see my opponent falling very low on time and yeah what to do for lights how to defend I was searching for defense but didn't really see an effective one after Queen F4 I take and after Queen takes G3 Rook H6 and yeah white is in big big trouble The Rook is coming to G6 and what to do I was imagining Rook G6 Queen H3 and eventually getting the mates anyway in addition to winning the queen time taking down light falling below 10 seconds and yeah white resigns and it was a pretty smooth game of course White had chances to be much better after the opening and I do want to go back and just share basically what my opponent should have done not to allow this very dangerous attack now Bishop E2 is considered a slight mistake just because black can essentially equalize after Knight takes E4 now I didn't go for that line because H5 just offers more attacking ideas and actually during the game I was very much hoping for H3 and this walks into a really cool trap Knight G4 and if it takes takes then black is winning because Queen E5 Queen H2 is a massive threat so D3 Queen E5 and there's no stopping checkmates like G3 it's made in one and there's a really cool line instead of D3 let's say G3 I still play Queen E5 King G2 looks to defend because now if Queen H5 there's Rook H1 but there's a pretty scintillating tactic here another Peace sacrifice Bishop takes F2 and uh White is just getting blown off the board if Rook takes F2 now Queen H5 and there's no uh no stopping Queen H3 really and there's no Rook H1 so this would be winning there's another funny line of takes check here check here Bishop E6 I've shown this before in many videos but just goes to show the joy of the standard what uh the potential traps can lead to so going back what my opponent should have done in this position after Knight G4 was take and after takes Bishop F4 uh White's actually holding on there'd be maybe some chance to get initiative but the engine gives almost plus one in uh White's favor um but going back even further I'll show what I was most scared of and it's actually a simple line in this position uh one of the reasons why the Stafford is not a great opening is because white has a move H3 here and this really puts a hamper on Black's attacking chances because there's no Knight G4 and um yeah the engine I think will give like almost plus two yeah over plus two for whites of course I would have tried to fight but um I would not have looked forward to playing this line I usually play H5 but there's other moves there's G5 with idea of G4 there's B5 B4 ideas um sometimes Queen D4 will come in these lines as well so it could have been a much bigger challenge if my opponents knew the um at least one of the refutations but it was a fun game hope you guys enjoyed this one uh let me know if you want to see more of my games from the Vegas Blitz tournament I did play a few very strong Grand Masters towards the end of the tournament so stay tuned for more and I'll see you guys soon

Channel: Eric Rosen

Views: 72,062

Keywords: chess, imrosen, Eric Rosen, Chess Openings, Chess Tactics, Blunder, Chess Strategy, Twitch Chess, Chess Stream, lichess, IM Rosen, IM Eric Rosen, Eric Rosen Chess, Best YouTube Chess Channel, Best Chess Channel, YouTube Chess, Blitz Chess, Speed Chess, Chess Commentary, International Master, chess game, chess video, lichess.org, chess explained, Checkmate, chess 2021, stafford gambit, opening traps, vegas blitz, vegas chess, vegas chess festival, national open chess

Id: 1eP5P3OwCmQ

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023