Scottish game
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The basic position of the Scottish game after 3. d2 – d4
The Scottish game is an opening of the game of chess . It is one of the open games and develops from the king knight game (or more rarely from the Middle Gambit with a change of move ).
The name of the Scottish game goes back to the year 1824, when a London chess group had to play a game against a team from Edinburgh in a correspondence chess tournament. The Londoners played the following moves:
1. e2 – e4 e7 – e5
2. Ng1 – f3 Nb8 – c6
3. d2 – d4
In the further course of the tournament, the team from Edinburgh opened with the same moves against the Londoners and won. The Scots eventually won the entire tournament and history would have the opening named after the country that successfully applied it in the game.
Because of the flattening tendency in the main variant, Scottish did not play a major role in the 20th century. It was not until Kasparov in the 1990 World Chess Championship that Scottish was used again in a World Championship match for the first time since 1892. That sparked a Scottish renaissance. Kasparov used the lousy variant.
The Scottish part is marked with the ECO code C45.
variants
The following main variants are known (based on the position in the diagram), they all begin with capturing the pawn on d4 ( 3.… e5xd4 ):
- Main variation: 4. Nc6xd4 Ng8 – f6 5. Nb1 – c3 Bf8 – b4 6. Nd4xc6 b7xc6 7. Bf1 – d3 d7 – d5 8. e4xd5 c6xd5
- Bad variant: 4. Nf3xd4 Ng8 – f6 5. Nd4xc6 b7xc6 6. e4 – e5 after Qd8 – e7 7. Qd1 – e2 Nf6 – d5 8. c2 – c4 Bc8 – a6 9. b2 – b3 wants g7 – g5 f2– f4 prevent. 8.… Nd5 – b6 leaves the option a7 – a5 – a4 open for the case of b2 – b3.
- Steinitz Variation: 4. Nf3xd4 Qd8 – h4 The e4 pawn can hardly be held. The downside of this move, however, is that Bc7 was left alone. 5. Nb1 – c3 Bf8 – b4 6. Bf1 – e2 Qh4xe4 7. Nd4 – b5 Bb4xc3 + 8. b2xc3 shows a typical course of this sharp game system.
- 4. Nf3xd4 Bf8 – c5 was revived as part of the Scottish Renaissance. After 5. Nd4xc6 the intermediate move Qd8 – f6 avoids the double pawn on c6 or gives both sides a double pawn after 6. Qd1 – f3 Qf6xf3 7. g2xf3 b7xc6. 5. Bc1 – e3 Qd8 – f6 6. Nd4 – b5 is the Blumenfeld attack.
- Göring gambit (the Morra gambit has the goal Nb1xc3 in common with the Göring gambit): 4. c2 – c3 with the rejection of d7 – d5 or the acceptance of d4xc3 5. Nb1xc3
- Scottish gambit: 4. Bf1 – c4 After 4.… Bf8 – b4 + 5. c2 – c3 d4xc3 6. Nb1xc3 this leads to the accepted Göring gambit. The nameless 4th… Bf8 – c5 and 4th… Ng8 – f6 (leads to the Max Lange attack ) are the most frequently played answers. 4.… Bf8 – c5 5. c2 – c3 denotes the Haxo gambit. If Black accepts the gambit with 5.… d4xc3, White gets a more active position after 6. Bc4xf7 + Ke8xf7 7. Qd1 – d5 + Kf7 – e8 8. Qd5xc5 for the sacrificed pawn. If Black rejects the gambit, 5.… Ng8 – f6 6. c3xd4 leads to the main line of the Italian game .
The Scottish Four Knights Game leads to the main line after 4. Nb1 – c3 (instead of 3. d2 – d4) Ng8 – f6 4. d2 – d4 often after 4.… e5xd4 5. Nf3xd4.
literature
- Anatoly Karpov : Scottish. Scottish game and Scottish gambit. Sportverlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-328-00476-9 .