The New Englunder: I finally like d4

As black, I have always hated when white plays d4. I played the QGD, locking in my light-squared Bishop, settling in for a relatively closed, symmetric, long, boring game. Not any more. The other night, I got pissed when white played d4 so I tried something crazy: 1. d4 e5!?. Fun fun fun! Not just a win but a tactical melee.

I looked it up later and found that it is a gambit line called The Englund Gambit. This extremely rare opening is unsound at GM levels (good news, as this means the opening books for white will likely only offer up a single subvariation, probably insulting it as broken and only popular in the 1880s).

I have gone 3-0 with it so far, and while I know I will amass many losses with the Englund, I finally am looking forward to when white plays d4! What speaks in favor of playing it at my level are a few factors:
1. White immediately is taken out of his comfort zone. Unless he is a Blackmar-Diemer gambit player, most d4 players prefer a slow, closed game. There is no way for white to achieve a slow, closed game against e5.
2. White is immediately taken out of book. As is black, as there is virtually nothing on this opening out there. So both players are playing chess from an early move.
3. Lots of fun little cheapos for black (see this video--I don't play the line in this video, but the line I play has other little cheapo traps that are good as they don't involve weakening the position, but normal developing moves).
4. Great for blitz, which is all I'm playing right now. One or two games a night.
5. The version I'm playing, which doesn't have a name, and which is played in only 146/3000000 games in my database, has a lot of similarities with the Smith-Morra and Danish, both of which I play as white, so there is synergy action.
6. It's actually not any worse (from Fritz's perspective) than other gambit lines I play. Yes, black is down a pawn, but a small price to pay for clearing lines for bishops, castling quickly, and blowing things wide open.
7. Not a bunch of stuff to memorize. I have found playing natural moves leaves me with a good position (i.e., big advantage in piece activity, but down a pawn, which is how I like it).
8. I just like it. It is fun, it fits with my style, and no longer will I let out a groan in 1/5 of my games as black.

The downside, of course, is that if white plays it right, it is better for white. Black makes no effort to recoup his lost pawn, but simply tries to mount an attack. So if white manages to build a stable position and grind down to the endgame, black is at a disadvantage. Luckily, at my level, this hardly ever happens. Even in my QGD games, most of them are decided by tactical oversights.

This makes me want to dive into chess again. Must resist....must resist...

Here is what Cox, in his great book Starting Out: 1 d4 says of the opening, of course in the miscellaneous section at the end of the book:

1...e5, the Englund Gambit, offers a rite of passage every chessplayer should go through in the form of the gamelet [sic] 2 dxe Nc6 3 Nf3 Qe7 4 Bf4 Qb4+ 5 Bd2 Qxb2 6 Bc3 Bb4 7 Qd2 Bxc3 Qc1 mate, but instead 6 Nc3 gives White a virtually winning position.

Hee hee. This is a really good book, fairly broad as well as deep. This quote makes me very happy. It says "I am not taking this opening seriously, and I am showing this as a novelty, as spectacle. Don't worry about this Englund crap, dear reader of my d4 book."

I deviate as black before move five into a line more to my style. My version, which I am dubbing 'The New Englunder' (I am from New England, after all), goes 1 d4 e5!? 2 dxe f6?!. Crazy, looks horrible, but it is actually quite hard to bust, and I have found that nobody I'm playing has any idea what to do. Play often continues 3 exf Nxf6, and I have an acceptable lead in development to compensate for the pawn I just gave up (pic below after these moves, white to move). An open file for my rook once I castle, which will nicely protect the Knight when white invariably moves his dark bishop to g5. I like it. Total open possibilities for my queenside pieces. No need to worry about a cramped light-squared bishop. Heaven.


Note added--of course, this ends up having a name, The Soller Gambit. It is basically a reversed Blackmar Diemer Gambit. Didn't I just sell a book, the bible, of the BDG after reading Collins saying "Nobody who plays good chess plays the BDG, and nobody who plays good chess ever will"? My saving grace is that since I'd be playing black, I don't care. I'd rather be reckless and have fun against d4 than get caught in the crazy world of heavily booked responses.