Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e5/2. Nf3/2...Nc6/3. Bb5/3...f5/4. Nc3/4...fxe4/5. Nxe4/5...d5/6. Nxe5/6...dxe4/7. Nxc6/7...Qg5/8. Qe2/8...Nf6/9. Nxa7/9...Bd7/10. Bxd7/10...Nxd7/11. f4

Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defence

	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

Common moves:
11...Qc5 - German Variation
11...Qxf4 - Grandmaster Gambit Accepted

Black's queen is attacked by an unprotected pawn. There are two plausible queen moves:

• 11...Qxf4 accepts the gambited f-pawn, which then allows White to solve most of her problems with the developing move 12.d4 before the a7-knight needs to be extracted to b5. White remains a pawn up and although Black can point to a passed pawn on e4, it's isolated and immobile.
• 11...Qc5 attempts to imbalance the position a little by grabbing the c2-pawn instead of the f4-pawn, thus isolating White's d-pawn. Sadly, 12.Nb5 Qxc2 13.d4! is still possible, and with 13...Qc6 not sufficing to defend the e-pawn because of 14.d5 (14...Qxd5?? 15.Nc7+) the queens will have to come off and White is a clear pawn up again.

Those two lines are Exhibits A and B for the prosecution's case that 9.Nxa7+ busts the whole Classical (7...Qg5) Schliemann Defence.

Other moves:

• 11...Qf5 was tried a bunch of times between 2011 and 2013, with no success whatsoever. White calmly retreats with 12.Nb5 and then has pawn majorities on both sides of the board. 12...O-O-O 13.a4 gets the queenside one rolling.
• Similarly 11...Qh4+. It's not clear how Black benefits from provoking g3 before retreating the queen to e7.
• 11...Qa5 was suggested on the ChessPublishing.com message board, but it's completely refuted by Solodovnichenko's 12.Nb5 Bc5 13.b4! Bxb4 14.Rb1 O-O-O 15.Na7+! Qxa7 16.Rxb4 when White's attacking chances are as great as Black's.