Steinitz Variation | PUNISH the Scotch Game (now 5 wins out of 5!)

#chess #scotchgame #SteinitzVariation
Today, I played as Black against another Scotch Game and I, once again, deployed the Steinitz Variation line (4... Qh4). And again, it was a win! I think this is more than a fluke now as I've now won 5 out of 5 Steinitz Variation games against the Scotch. In comparison, I'd lost around 60% of the time out of 19 games using the much more standard "Classical Variation" (4... Bc5). Considering that these were games largely without much study, against people who play the Scotch regularly, I think this is quite remarkable!
The Lichess community database of lower-rated blitz and rapid games supports this. There are more than 1.5 million Scotch Games in this category, and Black responds with the Steinitz Variation less than 2% of the time. It's the 8th most common response. This means that the Scotch Game player will rarely see this position. More than that, it is the ONLY response where Black has a win advantage over White, and not an insubstantial one (54% vs 41%).
The interesting thing after entering the Steinitz Variation is that move 5 for both players are kind of naturally obvious and are thus the most common moves. White develops a knight move to defend the pawn on e4 (5. Nc3), and then Black responds by upping the ante by pinning that knight to the king with their dark square bishop (5... Bb4). This obvious line is the "Modern Defense" in the Steinitz Variation of the Scotch Game.
However, move 6 is generally where things get critical for White. The Scotch Game player has only one good move that maintains their advantage - developing their light square bishop seemingly in a passive move in front of their king (6. Be2). However, this is very solid as it lines up the White queen and bishop in a battery and baits the Black queen into taking the pawn on e4, and then the pawn on g2, with a seemingly attack on the rook. However, if Black gets greedy, this is a serious mistake as the light square bishop now attacks the black queen with Bf3, with x-ray defence of that rook. Black's attack collapses as the queen needs to escape and is on the wrong part of the board that is unsupported by Black's other pieces. Fundamentally, the Steinitz Variation is objectively bad for Black.
However, in beginner-intermediate chess, how likely is it that White find this critical move (6. Be2) down this line of theory? According to Lichess, of around 30,000 games of the Steinitz Variation of the Scotch Game, White played this move around 3% of the time. Of all Scotch Games, this occurred in only 1 in 1600 games. This means that there is a very high likelihood that a Scotch player will never find this move, or have seen it before, unless they've specifically studied this response. The second-best response for White is equal for White and Black, and everything else gives the advantage to Black!
Wilhelm Steinitz was the first official world chess champion in the 19th century, and he was known at the earlier part of his career for his aggressive attacking style that was characteristic of the Romantic period of chess. This line in the Scotch Game perfectly captures this mood - wild, aggressive, somewhat unsound, but successful in regular games!
Game on chess.com: www.chess.com/...

[@krash2784]

Nice one! German here, it's actually pronounced "Shteinitz" ;)

[@chessnoob64]

Hey, thanks for the correction! I'll try to remember to pronounce it correctly next time.

[@alancoe1002]

Nice variation. I play 1.....e5 against 1.e4 fairly often and I can't remember the last time anyone played the Scotch against me (Evan's Gambit-happy bunch), but I will remember! They 'surprise', me, I'll surprise them. Thanks.

[@chessnoob64]

Thanks 👍