In this lesson, I will show you how to crush the Dutch Defense as White. This line is called the Hopton Attack. We’ll analyze a game where a grandmaster fell for a trick early in the opening and got into a losing position in just 7 moves. The grandmaster also lost the game in just 14 moves!

This happened in the Dutch Defense chess opening which happens after the first moves 1.d4 f5. You will learn how to build a sudden and powerful attack in the line 2.Bg5.

In the game, a Black moved 2…g6. This allowed white to pursue a plan that activates his rook early on without even moving it, though rooks often get developed late after castling.

White can do this by moving the pawn in front of the rook. And indeed, white played h4 on the 4th move.

Hopton Attack Video Lesson

Watch the full video lesson to see how a grandmaster got tricked into a bad position and went down early in the game.

You can find the PGN of this game below:

Discover more openings with our Chess Openings Lesson Guide to find lessons organized by opening strategies. Improve your play from the first moves with a clear, topic-based approach.

This opening is a great tool in your arsenal as it’s aggressive and full of traps which can win you quick and easy victories. However, there’s more to chess improvement than just learning different openings.

If you want to learn all the fundamental things about chess then you need to check out Level Up Your Chess. This course has six sections covering, not just the opening, middlegame and endgame. It also covers how to avoid blunders and how to study and train effectively.

And my big promise in this course is that studying just one section is enough to boost your chess rating. So, go ahead and check it out.