Ok, so game number 5 I was playing a young player with a lower rating as well. This is something I always find quite tricky, as they tend to be better than their rating indicates. Often, they know a lot of theory as well and tend to play sharp games. This time I luckily was able to surprise him with a Max Lange attack, where one mistake was enough to crush him.
For those unknown with the gambit, I'll but a bit of the beginning in here as well. So basically, the gambit begins with 4. d4.
As with all gambits, you are ok to accept it and take the pawn. When played right, you will have an advantage in the end. So, this part of the theory always looks like fireworks already but is all playable. In the below position, where black takes a 2nd pawn and defends the knight on e4, you can actually just take with 7. Bxd5, Qxd5 8. Nc3 and winning back the knight on e4.
After some more development moves to bring my pieces in position, he now made a small mistake but not e.g., castling to bring his king in safety. Instead, he played Bg4.
Where my below move 12. Qxd4 was not fully accurate and Ng3 would have been slightly better the position was still equal. Black should have taken 12. ... Qxd4 and would have been ok. Probably even a bit better with his white squared bishop. Instead, he went for 12. ..., Bxf3, which looks ok, but is in fact a blunder. As I will not exchange queens and end up with a double pawn on the f-file, but I play 13. Qxg7. And so.... it begins....
By now the king is on the run and there are a lot of good options to make use of this. I chose to take 14. gxf3, but Qxf7 would have been even more accurate. Either way this was/is going to end badly, but I did feel that the road to the end looks beautiful.
He decided to run already to c8, which makes sense. Something like Rg8 was not possible due to Nf6+. Nonetheless, after Kc8 the knight still goes to f6. Probably resigning would have been easier here already, but he tried to stay alive with Nc6.
Although Qg4+ followed by Nd7+ is already the game this is not yet enough, so instead I played Rad1 to chase away (or trade) the queen. After Qf8 now Qg4+ does the trick.
Now there is nothing left to resign as you will now take the queen on f8 after Nd7+. To make things worse you are actually taking with a check, so you can simply finish it off with Re8+ after that. Apart from the result I also very much liked the final position in the sense that my pieces were all placed so way and in harmony. So, with a smile I returned back to the apartment for a well-deserved drink.
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