Let's play into the Queen's Gambit
Look, I like the Queen's Gambit. It was a good TV show. But I HATE playing against the opening. Let's crush the Queen's Gambit with the Albin Countergambit. When they try to give us a pawn, we flip the script and gambit our OWN pawn. First step: play into the Queen's Gambit with pawn to d5.
Let's fight back with the Albin Countergambit
And we have arrived at the Queen's Gambit, where white is giving away their c4 pawn. Usually we either take or defend. In the Albin Countergambit, we actually gambit a pawn of our own with pawn to e5.
OK if white doesn't take us, we take white. Pawn takes on d4.
There are 3 attackers on the d5 pawn - we really have no way to defend it. So instead, lets focus on development. Knight to c6.
DON'T trade queens here. Instead, keep on developing. Bishop to e6, hitting the queen and giving us a tempo.
Rook takes back on d8, of course. For the price of 1 pawn, we have developed our knight, bishop, and rook - not a bad deal.
This is white's most common move and it just LOST them the game. They were trying to defend their c4 pawn, but they missed our even bigger threat: knight to b4, threatening a fork on c2.
It just gets worse and worse... White moved their rook out of the way, but its the king we care about. Knight to c2 check.
Aaaand with the king blocking his own bishop, now we can play bishop to c4 check.
Why not take a free bishop? Bishop captures on f1.
Well done! We literally just have a free bishop. I don't need to tell you why that's winning.
White accepted our countergambit. Great. Now we push our pawn to d4 to stop them from developing their knight to c3.
White is trying to trade off our central pawn so they can continue developing. Before we trade pawns, though, let's play a check: bishop to b4.
Our bishop is hanging. So what do we do? Defend it? NO! We play pawn takes e3, inviting White to take our free bishop. If they do, its game over.
We're a bishop down. We have no pieces developed. We have a weak pawn. How are we going to win this? Well, we're going to steal the queen. Right now, we can't take the queen because the king defends her. Let's force the king out of the way with pawn takes f2 with check.
OMG we get to do the coolest move ever now. OK, so the king decided to stay with his queen, so we can't just capture the queen. We could play pawn captures knight on g1 and make a new queen, but then White takes our old queen with check, then takes our new queen on the next move. So, heres what to do: We play pawn takes knight on g1 and promote to a KNIGHT. Now White is in check and cannot take our queen. It's just so beautiful...
One move here wins us the queen. Can you find it? Hint: Bishop to g4, skewering the king against his own queen.
Aaaand queen takes queen on d1.
One of my favorite lines on this website. I mean, we literally PROMOTED TO A KNIGHT TO WIN A QUEEN.
The king took his eyes off the queen. Now she's ours. Queen takes queen on d1.
Yay!
White added an attacker on our d4 pawn. We can add a defender with knight to c6.
Black didn't stop our main threat bishop to b4 check, so now we play bishop to b4 check.
DON'T trade bishops here. Instead, play pawn captures pawn on e3. White will be forced to take back with the f-pawn which weakens their king.
Don't capture back the bishop here. Instead, play pawn takes pawn on f2 with check. White cannot capture our pawn because then we will win their queen.
One more thing before taking our bishop back: let's trade queens. Queen takes queen on d1.
NOW we can win our bishop back. Knight takes bishop on b4.
Well done! We are a pawn up, we have a pawn 1 square from becoming a queen, we have stopped white from castling, and we have damaged white's pawn structure. Life is good.
White took our pawn - we should take it back with queen to d5.
White's knight just came out - let's attack it with pawn to e4.
White attacks our queen instead of moving their knight. Now, instead of moving our queen, we'll PIN their knight. Bishop to b4.
White moved their knight into our territory - but now it's trapped! Seriously - take a look - it has no escape squares. Now how do we capture this trapped knight? First, we need to trade off our bishop so there's no Queen to a4 ideas. Bishop takes knight on c3.
Now we can attack the trapped knight with pawn to f6.
This... doesn't matter. It's just delaying the inevitable. Simply pawn to b5 here to block check.
Well done! We're winning this knight no-matter what white does.