5 
[FEN ""]
[startply "5"]

1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3

I reached this position after following the line for the Englund Gambit. Lichess says that this is known as the Mosquito Gambit. Is it a joke opening, or does it have some hidden ideas, making it useful?

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  • 1
    only useful for beating a newer beginner than the other. and yes that means that both of them would be real new beginners. anyone else is just playing a casual game and messing with the opponent. – edwina oliver Feb 19 '20 at 4:15
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    I answered below but one caveat: I am taking your word on the name of the opening. :) – PhishMaster Feb 19 '20 at 4:26
  • Black gambits a pawn for quick development ... for white. :D – user24344 Sep 6 '20 at 22:33
  • joke opening, joke name. – CognisMantis Oct 8 '20 at 1:03
7

It is safe to say that it is nothing more than a joke.

First, as a reasonably strong player, I cannot see any redeeming reason to play that...no tricks, no nothing.

Second, in Mega 2020, there are only three games out of more than 8 million total, which I will give below; and looking at them, it is clear that black did not take any of them seriously. Maybe the most amazing thing about them is that one game was actually played by the famous Grandmasters Tony Miles and Robert Huebner, but that was only a 5-move draw.

Lastly, and I had never even cracked this book before, but I have the famous Stefan Bucker series in German on the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit, and the companion volume on the Englund. Bucker does not even mention 2...Qh4 in the Englund book.

 [Event "Interpolis-09"]
 [Site "Tilburg"]
 [Date "1985.09.13"]
 [Round "12"]
 [White "Miles, Anthony John"]
 [Black "Huebner, Robert"]
 [Result "1/2-1/2"]
 [ECO "A40"]
 [WhiteElo "2560"]
 [BlackElo "2620"]
 [PlyCount "9"]
 [EventDate "1985.08.28"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "14"]
 [EventCountry "NED"]
 [EventCategory "15"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qa4 4. Nc3 Qa5 5. e4 1/2-1/2

Game 2 might just have been very weak children.

 [Event "Brasileiro U18"]
 [Site "Brazil"]
 [Date "1999.??.??"]
 [Round "?"]
 [White "Becker, Gabriel"]
 [Black "Zap, Felipe"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "A40"]
 [PlyCount "30"]
 [EventDate "1999.??.??"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "10"]
 [EventCountry "BRA"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qe4 4. Nc3 Qg6 5. Qd3 Qc6 6. e4 Bc5 7. Be3 Bb6 8. Bxb6 cxb6 9. Be2 Nh6 10. O-O Na6 11. Qd5 Qxd5 12. exd5 Ng4 13. Nd4 h6 14. Bxa6 O-O 15. Bd3 Re8 1-0

And the last game.

 [Event "LIB-ch"]
 [Site "Beirut"]
 [Date "2007.07.26"]
 [Round "2"]
 [White "Aramali, Ohannes"]
 [Black "Zahr, Hassan"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "A40"]
 [PlyCount "39"]
 [EventDate "2007.07.25"]
 [EventType "swiss"]
 [EventRounds "9"]
 [EventCountry "LBN"]
 [FEN ""]

1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qb4+ 4. c3 Qb5 5. e4 Qa5 6. Bc4 Na6 7. O-O c6 8. Ng5 Nh6 9. Qf3 Qxe5 10. Nxf7 Rg8 11. Nxe5 Rh8 12. Bxh6 gxh6 13. Qf7+ Kd8 14. Rd1 Nb8 15. Na3 Bxa3 16. bxa3 Re8 17. Qf6+ Kc7 18. Qd6+ Kb6 19. Rab1+ Ka5 20. Qb4# 1-0
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  • P.S. The books I mentioned are relatively "famous" if you are a serious collector, mostly because the BDG books were so complete at the time, and the Englund book might be the only book on the subject. – PhishMaster Feb 19 '20 at 4:25
  • There are 8 millions games in mega 2020 ? Isn't it rather 1.5 milions ? – Olorin Feb 19 '20 at 7:26
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    Some background on the game Miles-Hübner (source: chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1097713): "this was the tournament where miles' back was too sore to sit in a chair so they let him lie on a massage table. the other players protested. this game was agreed to as a draw before hand...the draw was agreed, but obviously not the moves ;)" – Maxwell86 Feb 19 '20 at 7:50
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    @Olorin, I have have been buying ChessBase since it first came out as version 1 back in 1990, and with it, the Mega Database. Even back then, it had over a million games. As of today, it has 8,094,324 games. You can verify that here by reading the description: shop.chessbase.com/en/products/mega_database_2020 You mentioned in another post that you bought it as a download. The site you bought it from very well may be a bogus site, and it would be the same as illegally downloading it, even though you paid for it. I recommend that you buy it directly from ChessBase when they have their – PhishMaster Feb 19 '20 at 10:35
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    @PhishMaster Just a follow up on this : my bad, I indeed have more than 8M games as expected in the mega database 2020. It's just me bing stupid : I also had a "database 2020" base that has 1.5M games, had removed weeks ago the mega, and mistook it for the mega ... – Olorin Feb 21 '20 at 19:48
3

Normally you sacrifice material for the initiative or a positional compensation, but this opening clearly has nothing in it and all you are doing by bringing the queen out early is allowing white to gain a tempo on it. I would say it's like a Scandinavian a pawn down and the Scandinavian by itself is quite bad.

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    And this is not even close to on the level as the Scandinavian...in that opening, the queen can get to the relatively safe Qa5 square. In this opening, short of admitting failure, and playing 3...Qd8, there is only Qh5, and being just down a pawn...all other squares just get the black queen pushed around a lot more. – PhishMaster Feb 19 '20 at 14:22
  • No, the Scandinavian is playable and fine. – user24344 Sep 6 '20 at 22:34
1

The Mosquito Gambit should only be played in faster blitz time controls and bullet like 3|2 or 1|0 for psychological purposes against weaker opponents. Only play it against weaker players because higher rated people know how to convert a material advantage to a winning one. It is in fact marginally better fred defense, southern variation.

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    There are definitely better ways to get advantage against weaker opponents – David Oct 8 '20 at 8:02
  • I see no reason to play such nonsense, whatever the time control and whoever the opponent. – Evargalo Oct 8 '20 at 13:57

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