Today I’m sharing with you a tricky chess opening variation for Black against 1.e4. It happens in the Two Knights Defense after the following moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6.

One of the main variations for White is 4.Ng5, targeting the f7-pawn, which leads to the Fried Liver Attack. You will learn how to counter it by playing 5…b5, which is known as the Ulvestad Variation.

This variation is so tricky that Black gets a lot of active pieces and a strong attack against the White’s king. The most commonly played moves by White lose the game.

Before I share with you how you can win against the most popular opening in tonight’s game, let me ask you to think about this position below. It is white’s turn to move. How would you play here if you were playing as white? This will explain why this variation is so successful.

Now, let’s think about this for a second. We can see that your bishop is under attack, so naturally, perhaps the first move you think about is Bxb5. If not, maybe you may also consider dxc6. And guess what? Both of these moves usually lead to white being completely crushed.

The correct move for white is actually bishop going all the way back to f1 (Bf1), which saves the game for a while. But because nobody really comprehends that this move is the right one, all of your opponents are going to be crushed badly.

From the beginning, we’re going to be going over the most common chess opening variation, especially in online Blitz Games. Here, after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6, and they’ll often try to go 4. Ng5 initiate this quick Fried Liver Attack, which is often successful. Black doesn’t know what to do here.

4…d5 5.exd5 b5

But what I suggest you play here is a paradoxical move, pawn to b5. Instead of dealing with this pawn anyhow, you just play this weird pawn move on the side of the board.

Here’s what’s gonna happen here. One has a couple of options to try to deal with the threat of Qg2 checkmate. In most cases, they play f3

If White plays 9. f3

If White plays 9.Nf3 

In this opening variation, instead of playing f3 which didn’t work out really well for White, some of your opponents will play Nf3, covering your checkmating threat that way.

If White plays 9.Qf3

In order to parry Queen threat, some of your opponents occasionally will play Qf3. It is the least frequent option because it also feels uncomfortable for White to put their queen against her bishop, but it’s actually a pretty good move for White here. And although normally you do not want to play e4 and close the diagonal, in this case, I do recommend that you play it anyway because we do not want to allow an exchange of queens for no reason.

Conclusion

Winning against the most popular opening in Blitz Games can be challenging, but by understanding and implementing the correct moves, you can succeed. In this article, we learned that in the Fried Liver Attack, playing pawn to b5 instead of dealing with the pawn on d5 is paradoxical but effective. Overall, with careful planning and execution, you can win against the Fried Liver Attack and other popular chess opening variations.

You can find the PGN of this opening variation below: