The Matsukevich Gambit is a line in the Alekhine Defense where white puts their bishop on g5 and queen on b3 to cause a brutal attack against black. Moves start out:
1. e4 Nf6
2. e5 Nd5
3. c4 Nb6
4. c5 Nd5
5. Nc3 Nxc3
6. dxc3 d6
7. Bg5
For more chess openings you can check out
Hey everyone this is Kevin from the Chesswebsite.com and today we’re going To be going over the matsukovic Gambit Which drives from the alakine defense Which starts out with E4 and then Knight F6 upon typically just pushes forward With E5 attacking the Knight Knight to D5 and then just continuing to put Pressure on that Knight with C4 Knight to B6 the most common move and Now y has a few options one of the most Common ones is D4 but right behind that You could just play C5 attacking the Knife Knight’s usually just going to Come back to D5 in the center of the Board white can no longer attack it with The pawns so Knight to C3 It’s pretty standard here after black Exchange and white takes on C3 now the Main line for black is to play D6 White is now going to play the move Bishop to G5 and this is the matsukovic Gambit that we’re going to be going over Today it has an extremely high win rate And you’ll start to see how difficult it Is for Black to play That’s running through databases to see How often this position arises and the Most common response from black even if You put it through the engine is to play Pawn takes on E5 and this is really Where the fun starts For white because if you look at and say Well I don’t really see how White’s
Going to get a huge Advantage here the Queens exchange off the board uh yeah Black can’t Castle anymore after the the King takes here but once the Queens can Adopt the board doesn’t really matter if You can Castle or not but White’s not Looking to Castle instead they’re gonna Play the move Queen B3 now this bishop On G5 it looks somewhat out of place It’s not really attacking the weak Square on F7 which is typically the Square you want to attack for white Early in the game The Queen Is on B3 for Sure but the bishop is not so what is The bishop doing and what are the Threats that white actually has that’s What we’re going to be going over today What I like about this Gambit is it’s One of those that if you can play it Against your opponent which if you play Against the elephant alicon defense you Will have a lot of opportunities because None of the lines that we looked at uh Were really that crazy it really just Comes down to if you want to continue to Chase that Knight away instead of Playing D4 early on you’ll get a chance To play this but you’ll really see that Black has a difficult time dealing with Let’s look at some of the threats you Can see immediately we’re pinning down This Pawn on E7 to the queen so they Can’t just play you know E6 we would Take their queen that would be a
Disastrous move Let’s kind of go through some of the Other terrible moves they could have and Then we’ll look at the best move for Black which I think is difficult to find So one option they have is Knight C6 This is probably their their worst Option but it’ll start to give you an Idea of the threats that white has white Canal play the move Rook 2 D1 this is Attacking the queen you can start to see The queen doesn’t have a lot of good Options as far as where it is going to Go so let’s look at a few of them one is Bishop to E6 is okay if you’re gonna Take my queen I’m gonna take your queen As well but unfortunately this exchange Is not going to work out we can play Queen takes on B7 we’re still attacking Their Queen okay so how do they stop This if they just bring their Bishop Back D7 well the exchange is not going To work we take their Bishop they take Our Rook we take their Rook on A8 check And then they definitely don’t want to Exchange Queens because we’re up in Material and we want to exchange down They don’t want to so maybe Knight d8 This Knight’s awkwardly place that’s not Going to be good and then we played Knight F3 we’re up in material and we Should have a very easy in-game from Here if we come back if they decide okay I want to play Bishop E6 that’s not
Going to be a good trade for us what if They just play Bishop D7 Anytime they move that Bishop off of This C8 Square they’re just setting Themselves up for so much pain if they Come to E6 we took on B7 but here what They’ve also neglected is the F7 Square So now we can play Bishop to C4 and now We’re eyeing down both our Queen and our Bishop on the F7 Square we already Talked about they cannot play E6 which Is what they want to play because that Leaves their Queen hanging on d8 so we Have this threat here in the center of The board neither of their pawns on D or The E file can stop this they don’t have Their Knight that started on G8 to stop This threat so how do they really do Anything the knights on C6 can’t stop it They don’t have a lot of good options From here Maybe they play Queen C8 just trying to Give their King some Square to go to Okay well now we can just take with our Bishop on F7 now their King can’t Castle We still have our Queen so it’s not Going to be good for black you can see The king is now on an open file with our Rook on D1 this is not gonna be good we Can get more material involved into the Game and there’s no safe squares now for Black to continue they can’t get their Pawn out to E6 to get their dark Square Bishop involved it’s being pinned down
By the bishop here we can get our Knight Involved here you can see we’re adding a Lot of pressure this bishop on D7 is Pinned down the Queen’s not going Anywhere neither of the Rooks are going Anywhere as well so that’s what happens If early on they play that Knight to C6 Not going to be a good option the next Option that you could see is just the Move F6 attacking the bishop here on G5 Now it’s nice is for white we can pretty Much disregard this bishop because we Have a stronger attack and that is Bringing the Rook over here to D1 that’s Why it’s so important you bring your Queen to B3 attacking the weak Square on F7 and then that opens up you can get Your Rook over to D1 and this D file is Completely open okay so how do they stop This well now they because they’re Knights not on C6 it does have the Option they can either defend the square On D7 with their bishop or their Knight So let’s look at both them first we’ll Look at uh Bishop 2d7 I like to think of This as black loses quickly where Knight To D7 black loses slowly but we’ll look At both options you can really see uh How bad this gets for black here Bishop D7 blocking this But now as soon as they play their Bishop you’ve probably seen this before We take on B7 now they could take our Bishop yes but now we can take their
Rook that’s definitely going to be a Better exchange for us and now they’ve Opened up their King side of the board This f file is no longer secure for them And they’re kings in the center of the Board with their dark Square Bishop Still in a tough spot maybe now they Play E6 to open up for their dark Square Bishop we can play B4 that solidifies This Pawn structure so this bishop can’t Really go anywhere yeah I could come to E7 potentially but now we just play F3 We’re attacking the pawn on E5 uh we can Gobble up material here on E7 if we want To we can centralize our Queen we’re Still pinning down this bishop on D7 uh From our Rook to the queen so they just Have a tough tough spot here and yes They can Castle on the king side but They don’t really have a good solid Structure and since we are up in Material since we took the Rook we Should have an easy in-game from here Now if we come back instead of Bishop D7 What if they play Knight to D7 this is What I like to think of is if black Wants to lose a long game or Bishop to D7 I think it’s more of a quicker loss Because now white has a really fun move And that is Queen E6 and it gets pretty Tricky for black before we had Queen on B3 and we’re looking to bring our Bishop To C4 where now we can reverse it Anytime your Bishop is supporting your
Queen The threat gets even crazier for black To deal with because once we get our Bishop to C4 It’s pretty much game over unless there Is a way for this King to move they Almost have to play C6 because without That how are they really going to Continue remember if they look at it and Say well I’ll just go ahead and attack This queen I’ll just take this Knight or This Pawn on C5 with my knight remember That Knight is pinned down by our Rook Here so yes we can take their Queen they Can’t just take our Queen back this is Check so this is a really really tough Predicament that we are putting them in They really need to be playing C6 in This spot from here we’re going to Continue Bishop C4 threatening mates on F7 they kind of need to play their Queen Out to A5 just so their King can come to This d8 Square we can play Bishop to E3 Defending the square on uh C5 now their Bishop here on f8 is kind of blocked off It’s not a great square and so you can See their King is going to be stuck in The center of the board here and we’re Attacking this area of the board our Bishop and queen are eyeing down this F7 Square they’re probably going to play King to d8 we could play Knight to E2 Start to rearrange where our Knights Going it can come to uh G3 then E4 and
Then really start to put a lot of Pressure on our opponents can even come Up here to F5 and start to attack some Of these critical squares on E7 and a G7 So we have a ton of options of how we Are going to continue in this spot this All comes back to if they decide early On He would play Queen to B3 and they say Hey let’s go ahead and attack that Bishop on uh G5 it’s just not gonna work Out great form Next option we’re going to look at is Instead of Knight to C6 and pawn F6 what If they play their Bishop now if they Play Bishop two E6 you’ve probably seen This story before they attack Our Queen We just come up and take on B7 as soon As they play their queen or their excuse Me their bishop and they’re not Defending the pawn on F7 we can just Come up here take this Pawn on B7 and we Are in a good spot now since we’re Attacking The Rook they’re probably Going to play Knight to D7 but then we Can Castle on the queen side Gives us uh you know it’s kind of the Same thing as far as getting the Rook to D1 but hey it also gives us a little Safer path for our King also allows us To really throw everything if we want to On the king side of the board and not Have to worry about a late game uh Saving from our King from just a
Structure standpoint they could play Rook B8 attacking Our Queen uh that’s Fine we can just play Queen C6 now we’re Putting the queen and the Rook uh both On this D7 Square the Knight can no Longer move it’s not just pinned down From The Rook to the queen but now it’s Pinned down to the the king and so it Definitely can’t move this bishop it’s Really in a tough spot it was attacking Our Queen but now it’s in no man’s land So that can’t go anywhere maybe they now Decide okay I need to get my Bishop here To G7 Castle on the king side But while they’re trying to just save Playing defense we can just develop our Pieces Knight to F3 here uh Bishop G7 we Could play Bishop comes back to E3 They could cast on the king side uh but As soon as our Bishop comes back this Also opens up for a knight to come to uh G5 they could play Bishop F5 we could Play H3 and then they have a couple Options here uh one is if they play E4 You may say well why do they play E4 the Whole reason is once we come up to G4 Now this Knight can come to E5 before When the pawn was on E5 it could not and So this now gives us the option once They’ve Castle on the king side they Don’t have to worry too much about us Taking their Queen with check they’ve Castled that’s no longer a threat we’ve Kind of looked at that one so Pawnee for
We’re gonna come up here to G4 Then they played Knight E5 But then we take their Queen they take Our Queen but then we take on f8 they Take on f8s and then we take the Material on F5 this exchange does not Work out for them at all Rook to G1 now It’s on this open file this is going to Be extremely bad for black now if we Come back if we play H3 maybe they Decide to play H5 instead okay great we Can still just push up with uh G4 Yes we could see an exchange uh right Here but after they take we have a lot Of threats here as well we could even Just play Bishop two uh H3 here if we Want to because now we have our Knights On a G5 we’ve opened up the H file we Can get both of our Rooks on the H file We just have a ton of threats that they Are going to have to deal with going to Be very very difficult this is why I say That this is kind of the losing and the Long approach black more than likely is Going to lose with all the threats that White has but it does take a little bit Longer for white to actually win this Game So let’s come back to the very beginning Of this after Queen to B3 the best move For black so that they don’t just lose Automatically Is kind of an odd move but it’s Queen to D7 remember the main theme around this
For white is This bishop on G5 and the Queen on B3 Because we can bring our work to D1 Really puts their Queen in a tough spot And because they’re queens in a tough Spot they just can’t do a ton so getting Their Queen to D7 is the best play But that’s fine we can just play Knight To uh F3 it’s gonna be more of a regular Development from us we’re attacking the Pawn on E5 we can get our light Square Bishop involved into the game similar to The other variations with C4 we can Castle on the king side can’t Castle Through Jackson I’m not going to be Casting on the queen side but this is Going to be a very solid structure for White and you can see Black’s already Blocking off their light Square Bishop Okay well if they want to play Pawn E6 They have a kind of an awkward structure With double pawns on the e-file just to Get their dark Square Bishop involved Into the game the castle uh so I think It’s going to be difficult even for Black to continue in this position even If they know the best move which is Queen D7 just doesn’t feel like it’s That great for black so this is why that If you get to play this white has such a High win percentage there’s just so many Lines that White’s gonna be better off So really enjoy this variation in Alakine defense so if you go up against
It I definitely recommend trying this Out but thank you guys so much for Watching this video if you wouldn’t mind Just leaving a comment in the bottom let Me know if you enjoyed it if there’s any Other openings you want me to do a video On or if there’s any other types of Videos please let me know that as well Thank you guys so much for watching I’ll See you in the next video
