Sunday, June 15, 2014
Another trap in From's Gambit
DO NOT play 1.f4 unless you have an answer ready for From's Gambit, 1...e5!? King's Gambiteers can happily play 2.e4. The line White played in the game was fine up to a point. IM Tim Taylor in his book Bird's Opening recommends 7.d4 Ng6 8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.Qd3! Nc6 10.c3! Bf5 11.e4 Qe7 12.Bg2 0-0-0 13.Be3 Bd7 14.Bf2!, when Black doesn't have enough compensation for the gambit pawn. Another line is 5.d4 g4 6.Ne5!, heading into a slightly better ending for White after 6...Bxe5 7.dxe5 Qxd1+ 8.Kxd1. Instead of playing these reasonable lines, most of my blitz opponents have played ridiculously and gotten crushed. A case in point:
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4 comments:
Actually, Taylor is wrong a lot! And, you too are liable to be wrong if you are too lazy to check databases and chess programs!
I will now hibernate and expect your next post to be sometime around February 2015.
Wow! Does this mean there is hope for the Chess Blog on the Illinois Chess association? Just because there hasn't been a post in nearly 2 years doesn't mean it's dead, right?
To me, the real insult is that 5½ months of silence is ended by a post on From's Gambit ;-)
Tim Taylor has many interesting opening ideas, and the line he gives seems both fine and logical for White. (Prematurely castling into Black's attack is just silly: gambiteers are often frustrated when castling is *slightly* delayed in order to stabilize the position.)
Having said that, maybe Black can inprove after 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nf3 g5 5.g3 g4 6.Nh4 Ne7 7.d4 Ng6 8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.Qd3 Nc6 10.c3 Bf5 11.e4 Qe7 12.Bg2 0-0-0 13.Be3 Be6!?, (Kotronias & Milos have played this) with the cool point 14.d5? Rxh2! Black seems OK after Taylor's 14.Bf2 because of 14...f5 (Houdini gives 15.Nd2 f4 16.e5 f3, for example). I'd rather have White, but Black's position seems playable.
Normal chess suffices: 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nf3 g5 5.d4 g4 6.Ne5 with a slight pull. But normal chess players don't play 1.f4 :-)
OK, enough trolling for me.
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