First off, if you follow @GothamChess you will know that this open is objectively better for White than Black. In this tournament I was facing a 500 rated player, and as a 900 rated player I figured I was safe to play the Englund Gambit against my opponent. What I did not realize was just how unorthodox my opponent would play, and the outcome of this game did not go the way I would want at all.
This game was played on May 10th of 2025 at the KC Knight’s Free End of School 2025 Tournament. My results in the 2nd round did not go as well as planned, but at least I know my opponent who was then rated at 500+ did win the under 1200 for the tournament and raised his rating to something much closer to my own. He and I have both sat down and reviewed this game together with our own fits of laughter at just how bad we both performed.
My opponent Louis was planning to play the Queen’s Gambit against me and as you would expect he opened with 1. d4 my response as expected was e5. As I hoped Louis responded with 2. dxe5 and here is where I immediately deviated from Englund because I clearly had not studied the open. 2…Bc5
The “Book” move here is Nc6, while Bc5 is not bad, it fails to follow some simple chess rules like Knights before Bishops, and controls the center less than Nc6 which also threatens to retake the pawn we just gave away.
The game continued with 3. e3 which frankly is a mistake as he is not developing his Knight. I countered with a little bit of recovery remembering that I was supposed to play my Knight first and played 3…Nc6. The game continued with 4.Nf3 Nge7. Again forgetting what I should be doing. Rather than play the best move Qd7, I blocked the Queen with my Knight. 5.Nbd2 O-O and you can see that my opponent like myself is making mistakes. I castled too early I should have pushed my d Knight forward to g6. but such as life.
At this point Stockfish evaluates the game slightly in White’s favor, but still everything is pretty even. He followed with 6.Bd3 d6 7.Bxh7
Kxh7. By the end of move 7 the odds are now firmly in my favor. Don’t worry I’ll give that away before the game is over.
Now looking things over I should have played 6…Ng6, a move I should have played multiple times by now. Ng6 blocks the attack of 7. Bxh7, but more importantly since most people would not just give away the bishop like this it opens up the Queen’s diagonal for development.
Instead though I found myself in this ridiculous situation with my King being drawn into the center of the board. The choas that follows was simply obsurd.
8.Ng5 Kg6 9.h4 Nxe5 10.h5 Kh6 11.Ndf3 Bg4
Up until here with 11….Bg4 I was holding my own. This blunder however is the one that quickly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and promptly starts the coin toss that became the rest of the game.
By the time we get to move 19 the game has flipped countless times, but now I’m not comfortable with how open and vulnerable my king is.
12.e4 Qe8 13.Ne6 Kh7 14.Nxf8 Qxf8 15.Ng5 Kg8 16.f3 Be6 17.h6 gxh6 18.Nxe6 fxe6 19.Bxh6 Qf6.
I’m going to come back to this, but for now I will publish and let you look at just how bad things were getting.
If you wish to plug the game into your own chess analysis engine or play it everything you need is below.
[Event “KC Knights Free End of School 2025”]
[Site “Overland Park Library”]
[Date “2025.05.10”]
[Round “2”]
[White “Louis”]
[Black “Patrick”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A40”]
[PlyCount “4]
1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 Bc5 3.e3 Nc6 4.Nf3 Nge7 5.Nbd2 O-O 6.Bd3 d6 7.Bxh7
Kxh7 8.Ng5 Kg6 9.h4 Nxe5 10.h5 Kh6 11.Ndf3 Bg4 12.e4 Qe8 13.Ne6
Kh7 14.Nxf8 Qxf8 15.Ng5 Kg8 16.f3 Be6 17.h6 gxh6 18.Nxe6 fxe6
19.Bxh6 Qf6 20.Qd2 Ng4 21.Ke2 Nxh6 22.Rxh6 Qg7 23.Rah1 Ng6 24.Qg5
Rf8 25.Rxg6# 1-0