Opening Puzzles
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A40 · Opening study

Englund Gambit

Black answers 1.d4 with a pawn sacrifice on move one. Unsound against good play, deadly against routine moves: learn the traps and their refutation.

1300–1600Know the mate on c1 and the smothered mate on d3 from both sides, and the one move (6.Nc3) that refutes the main trap.
1600–2000As White choose a refutation and learn it: 4.Bf4 with 6.Nc3, or the simpler 4.Nc3. As Black know which lines still give practical chances.
2000+Understand why the gambit fails against accurate play, and the forcing lines after 4.Qd5 and 5.Nc3 where both sides can still go wrong.
▶ Train 360 Englund Gambit puzzlesOpen in explorer

1.d4 e5 gives away a centre pawn for nothing concrete, and the engine already prefers White by more than a pawn. Named after the Swedish player Fritz Englund, who promoted it in the 1930s, the gambit lives on in blitz and online play for one reason: White's most natural moves lose. Defending the extra pawn with Bf4 runs into ...Qb4+ and an attack on b2, and blocking the check the wrong way drops a bishop or allows mate on c1. This study shows both sides honestly. As Black you learn the tricks and what to do when White knows them; as White you learn the two or three moves that leave you close to winning.

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A pawn for surprise

Move 1 of the line — press → or wait

Black offers the e-pawn at once. There is no real compensation: after 2.dxe5 White is a pawn up with a normal position. The gambit's value is practical, because Black's follow-up sets problems that many players have never seen.

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The ideas in 7 positions

Click a card to see it on the board. 0/7 viewed

Choose your path

After 2.dxe5 Nc6 3.Nf3 Qe7 White chooses how to deal with the attack on e5. Black's other second and third moves are rarer.

Starting point
1.d4 e5

Common mistakes, by level

Real patterns from club games. Every line is engine-checked; in the evals, plus is good for White.

These are the patterns worth knowing. For the full count, see the Englund Gambit mistakes players make most often at each rating.

Middlegame plans

What to do once the book runs out.

Now make it stick

Reading is the easy part. Solve the real mistakes from this opening until the patterns fire by themselves.

▶ Train Englund Gambit puzzles

Sources: Wikipedia: Englund Gambit (history, main line, Hartlaub-Charlick, Soller and Felbecker gambits) · Wikibooks: Chess Opening Theory, 1.d4 e5 (CC BY-SA) · Our own game data: most frequent flagged mistakes in the Englund Gambit (Lichess games, both players rated 1800+) and fall rates from analysed Lichess games at 1200–1400, 1500–1700 and 1900–2100 (May 2024 sample) · Stockfish 19, depth 20 on every mistake; every idea, variation and plan line checked move by move at depth 16. The gambit's own moves are flagged by that check, as expected.