The Michael Jackson gambit against the Scandinavian Defense

  I will tell you the truth: I am scared of the Scandinavian Defense. I don't know about you, but when you start learning chess you know you have to take space in the center with the pawns and develop pieces and not come out with the queen, right? So what is Black doing? What is that d5 move to my e4 ?! What do they intend to do when I take the pawn? Come out with the queen? Didn't we just say it's a bad idea? It's like I am being trolled. And I have no idea what to do!

  Well, Adamisko did it again! He found out a tricky reply for White which is ridiculously fun to play, easy to get into and hard to get out of as Black. He presented the main ideas in his YouTube video, but I've gone ahead and created a study for it, with some games I found in the Lichess database and various extended ideas.

  So what's the deal? What do you do after Black plays d5, attacking your e4 pawn? Do you take? Do you advance? No. You calmly play d3. Note that you can start with d3 and to the rather predictable d5, play e4. That's like saying "Go ahead, punk! Play the Scandi! Make my day!". The balls! Yet, in a weird way, you are playing chess based on the principles I listed above: you push a pawn to control the center and, when attacked, you protect it, so it continues to control the center.

  And if they take, which they normally do? Well, again with the principles: develop a knight on c3. And if they take again... err... develop the other knight on f3! And if they take again?! OMG, you just gave up the two center pawns and entered the Michael Jackson gambit!

  There are three types of replies from Black. To the green ones, you answer with Bg5. To the blue one, you answer with Bf4. And to the really bad Bg4 you just do Ne5. What were you trying to do there, bishop, you pin-head?

  The best thing is... no one seems to play these lines. The most common reply, Nf6, has been played in just 13 1800+ Rapid+ games. Just 3500 games have been played in all, with a 55% win rate for White, a statistic that keeps true regardless of rating and time control, for this variation as well as most of the others.

  Plans are pretty easy to remember, too:

• you have no c, d or e pawns anymore. So bring the rooks to the d and e files - often with tempo or pin on the enemy queen or king
• castle short to free both rooks
• your queen is already on the c-file, eyeing that juicy c7 spot
• get your bishops out immediately, attacking and pinning the same center squares in the enemy territory
• bring your knights out and attack the c7, d7 and f7 squares - often doubly attacked

  In other words: develop, develop, develop! If you like attacking chess, then this is the blood soaked, gore filled opening you've always dreamed of. Black wanted to troll you and get an early attacking position? You out-troll them!

  

  The video is pretty thorough and the study is even more loaded with stuff, so I will just present you some ending positions, just to wet your appetite:

  

  

Just look at those silly Black pieces marked with the yellow markings of shame! They are useless, blocked by their own pieces, stuck on the other side of the board or pinned and paralyzed. And look at the White attacking lines!

The funny thing is Adamisko is a Scandi player! And if the opponent plays something else, let's say we start with d3 and they do e5, a really ridiculous reply is... d4! , getting into a Scandinavian Defense with the White pieces!

And then there are the "refutation lines". With perfect play, Black manages to get... a half pawn advantage at the end. This is one of those "solid gambits" where you sacrifice material, but you are never behind.

Let's talk study. It has a lot of chapters, but most of them are game compilations with many lines - I've only selected the ones that generated an advantage, for various reasons. With the LiChess Tools browser extension you can even collapse the game chapters, as they are organized into one main chapter and many subchapters.

Here is the chapter list for the Michael Jackson Gambit study:

1. Intro chapter with the main moves and plans
2. Video chapter following the video exactly - with LiChess Tools you can play the video in a picture-in-picture kind of popup while you play the moves
3. The reversed Scandi moves that lead to the many gambits Adamisko created as a Scandi player
4. Game chapters, with real life games merged together for many variations
5. The refutation line(s) and what to do

Finally, here is the video describing the gambit and its main lines:

Let me know how you used this in your games!