Ercole del Rio, an Italian lawyer, chess player and writer was the first to mention the D4 pawn push in a 110 page chess book written in 1750. The Scotch game gets its name from a correspondence match between Edinburgh and London in 1824; the humours nature of this opening is the fact that it was John Cochrane a Scotsman from a noble family who led the London team, and persuaded them into playing the Scotch gambit against Edinburgh. Cochrane was a romantic player, who often threw caution to the wind in order to quickly pressure his opponents, he enjoyed playing dangerous gambit lines. Edinburgh and London played five games in their correspondence match in which the Edinburgh players were so enamoured with the early D4 pawn push, that they also used it as white against London. Despite the fact that the London team had a strong position, Edinburgh won the match and named the opening the Scotch game. After this historic match the Scotch gambit was popular for about 20 years, it lost its favour among top players by the early 1900s because it was thought to release the central tension too early, allowing Black to equalise without difficulty. More recently, grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Jan Timman helped to re-popularize the Scotch when they used it as a surprise weapon to avoid the well-analysed Ruy Lopez.
Scotch game - Introduction
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
8
8
7
7
6
6
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Scotch game - Classical variation
The 'Classical variation' is the most sensible and popular continuation for black in the 'Scotch game', though technically played less often than the 'Schmitt variation', however only by a negligible margin. The 'Classical variation' as the name suggests is the traditional approach to white's early central expansion, black immediately challenges white's knight while developing their dark-squared bishop and gets one move closer to castling kingside. In most continuations of the classical variation black either castles first, or is first to have the opportunity to castle.
Scotch game - Classical variation
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
8
8
7
7
6
6
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Scotch game - Scotch gambit
The 'Scotch gambit' gets its name from the famous correspondence match played between the rival Edinburgh and London Chess clubs. The 'Scotch gambit' is only a gambit in namesake, just as in the 'Queen's gambit', in all lines which black attempts to maintain their early material advantage result in a favourable position for white. The 'Scotch gambit' was most likely discovered around 1590 by Polerio, the leading player from Lanciano, during the heyday of the 'Scotch game', the 'Scotch gambit' was its most popular variation.
