Checking Back

When I reported on the game AreWeThereYet - metheny, blitz, FICS, 2009 (0-1, 28) in "Watch that last step...", taking a look at the nameless opening line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Na5  (which immediately got a Jerome Gambit-style twist, 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+) I neglected to mention that the two played again four days later, with the outcome quickly reversed: AreWeThereYet - metheny, blitz, FICS, 2009:  5...Ke8 6.Qh5+ Ke7 7.Qf7+ Kd6 8.d4 Qe7 9.Qd5 checkmate.

Time to check back and see how the opening is faring.

soulman  - Tadziu
standard, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Na5

4.Bxf7+

This move is not necessary; White can play the stronger (but much less fun) 4.Nxe5 instead.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Ke8 6.Qh5+ Ke7
 

 
If you do a position search in The Database (using ChessBase1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nh5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Ke7 6.Qh5 and 5...Ke8 6.Qh5+ Ke7 continuations – note that in the first case it is Black to move, in the second case, White.

7.Qf7+

Do a position search now, though, and the data return is clear, at least from one perspective: 55 games, White scores 71%.

7...Kd6 8.Qd5+

This is a good move, and in the majority of games White played it.

Only eleven games (1/5) had the best move for White, 8.d4. As only three games had Black playing the strongest reply to that move, 8...Qf6 (and Black won two of them), it is best to go over the reason that White should remember 8.d4.

After 8.d4 White threatens the devastating 9.Bf4, and Black's "best" is 9...Qf6, which falls to the inventive (and as yet unplayed) two-piece sacrifice, 10.Nc4+ Nxc4 11.Bf4+ Qxf4 12.Qxf4+ winning Black's Queen. (White can even interpolate 12.e5+ and wind up winning another piece.)

If Black defends against 8.d4 with 8...Nh6, instead, he immediately regrets that his Knight cannot go to f6 after 9.Qd5+ Ke7 10.Bg5+, winning the Queen. No better is 8...Ne7, as after 9.Qh5 White threatens Ne5-f7+, winning the Black Queen and Black wishes the Knight were on h6...

8...Ke7 9.d4

Clearly soulman has everything under control.

9...Nc6
 
Saving the wayward Knight that got this whole adventure started.
 
10.Bg5+

But losing the King after 10...Nf6 11.Qf7+ Kd6 12.Nc4 checkmate.

Black resigned