A trap in the Quaade Gambit

What on earth is the Quaade Gambit, you ask? It's a line of the King's Gambit that begins 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Nc3!?, deviating from the usual Kieseritzky prescription of 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5. The line is named for a 19th-century Dutch sea captain (not to be confused with Captain Evans, a Welshman). The natural response is 4...g4 5.Ne5 Qh4+, when White responds with the surprising 6.g3! fxg3 7.Qxg4! Now Black can and should trade queens, when Black will be a pawn up but White's lead in development and better pawn structure give him sufficient compensation.

But who can resist the temptation to win a rook with 7...g2+ 8.Qxh4 gxh1=Q? Not many, according to the databases. But resist Black should, for after 9.Qh5! he is in big trouble. According to John Shaw in his magnum opus on the King's Gambit, Black's best chance is 9...Nh6! 10.d4 d6 11.Bxh6 dxe5 12.Qxe5+ Be6 13.Qxh8 Nd7 14.Bxf8 0-0-0 15.Qxh7 Nxf8 16.Qh6 Ng6 17.0-0-0 Rh8 18.Qd2 Qxh2 19.Qxh2 Rxh2 20.Bd3, when White is a pawn up in the endgame with good winning chances. In the game below, Black instead went down in flames, as he usually does in this line. White won a once-in-a-lifetime beauty of a game:

King's Gambit silliness

I recently got GM John Shaw's amazing new 680-page tome The King's Gambit. It may be the greatest book ever written on a single opening! Well worth getting if you play either side of 1.e4 e5, and maybe even if you don't.

You might even want to give the King's Gambit a try. No doubt you'll lose some games, but on the other hand you'll win others like this. I guarantee that you're not going to win many 13-movers with the Ruy Lopez! A lot of people, even strong players, don't take the King's Gambit seriously, and spend little if any time preparing against it. Just take a look at the games that GM Joe Gallagher (author of an earlier book on the King's Gambit) won in 20 or fewer moves.

Yet another trap in the King's Gambit

I have previously shown (here and here) that in the King's Gambit Accepted after 3.Nf3, 3...f6? 4.Bc4 g5? 5.Nxg5! is crushing. My opponent in the following game found a slightly different ...g5 and ...f6 "defense," with equally grisly results. Incidentally, Houdini 3 points out 5...h5! (stopping Qh5+) 6.Nh3 d5! as preferable to accepting the knight, although White still gets a huge advantage.

The play in the game continuation is reminiscent of the main line of Damiano's Defense, which goes 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6? 3.Nxe5! fxe5 4.Qh5+ Ke7 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ d5 (best) 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.h4! In both lines White's queen, king bishop, and h-pawn kick Black's poor king all over the board.

My play was slightly inaccurate. White mates two moves faster with 11.h5+! Kh6 12.Qxf4+ Qg5 (12...Kg7 13.h6+! and mate next) 13.Qxf8+ Qg7 and now White can choose between the classical 14.d3# (Allgaier-NN, 1807) and the modern preference 14.d4# (Green-Kempfe, Minnesota 1982). By the same token, 15.h6+! would have forced mate a move faster than my 15.Qf7+.

One would be tempted to say, "Never play ...f6 when defending against the King's Gambit!", but that would be too dogmatic. As Bobby Fischer observed in his famous article A Bust to the King's Gambit, after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6 (Fischer's Defense to the King's Gambit) 4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng5?!, 6...f6! 7.Nh3 gxh3 8.Qh5+ Kd7 wins a piece without too much trouble. But be very leery of ...f6 - it weakens Black's king-side, takes away the king knight's best square, and does nothing for Black's development.

A novelty!

Shockingly, I encountered an Internet opponent tonight who doesn't read Chicago Chess Blog! As such, he had failed to read my post from last night demonstrating that 3...f6 and 4...g5 is not an effective response to the King's Gambit. But I wasn't content with 7.Qf7+ and mate in two more moves (7...Kd6 8.Qd5+ Ke7 9.Qe5#) as in last night's partie, and uncorked the novelty (at least for me) 7.Qxg5+! I learned this trick from Wall-Greenwalt, Dayton 1983. If Black responds with 7...Kd6, he gets mated the same way - just without his g-pawn - by 8.Qd5+ Ke7 9.Qe5#. Or he can play 7...Ke8, and get mated by 8.Qh5+ Ke7 9.Qe5#, as Greenwalt did. But NN played a novelty himself with 7...Nf6, allowing me to mate a move faster with 8.Qe5#!

Silly Internet Game No. 1048

This King's Gambit concludes with a sacrificial flurry. Had Black played 24...fxg6, 25.d6+ would have mated quickly; ditto with 24...Bg7 25.Rxg7+ Kxg7 26.Nxf7+. Incidentally, in the opening 5.e5 Nd5 6.Bc4 was better than my 5.d5, when Black would have been OK after 5...Ne7. On move 16, Houdini 3 points out the powerful shot 16.Nxf7! with a winning advantage.

A trap in the King's Gambit

In the King's Knight's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3), 3...h6 intending 4...g5 is a respectable line. 3...f6 with the same idea doesn't work so well. This game duplicates Trap No. 133 in Irving Chernev's book Winning Chess Traps, except that in that game Black played 3...g5 and 4...f6?

Two traps in the King's Gambit

The King's Gambit, that most romantic of openings, has repeatedly been pronounced dead. Over 80 years ago, Siegbert Tarrasch wrote in The Game of Chess (published in German in 1931, English translation in 1938), "I maintain it to be a decisive mistake." Rudolf Spielmann, "The Last Knight of the King's Gambit," was similarly pessimistic, writing an article at about the same time entitled, "From the Deathbed of the King's Gambit." In 1961, the first article in the inaugural issue of the American Chess Quarterly was Bobby Fischer's famous "A Bust to the King's Gambit," in which he opined, "the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force."

Yet the King's Gambit, like a monster rising from the crypt, refuses to die. Fischer, a couple of years after pronouncing it dead, started playing it himself, scoring 3/3 against Evans (the editor of American Chess Quarterly!), Wade, and Minić! Today another American chess icon, Hikaru Nakamura, keeps playing it, even against world-class GMs. ChessCafe.com just published a three-part survey on the opening by Tim Harding (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

For almost as long as the gambit has existed, the Kieseritzky Variation (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5!? 4.h4! g4 5.Ne5) has been a critical line. Greco used it to thrash poor NN in 1620, over two centuries before its eponym, Lionel Kieseritzky, took up the line. Spassky and Fischer played the Kieseritzky in their famous first encounter at Mar del Plata 1960. (Fischer's experience in that game, in which he stood better out of the opening but lost, inspired him to advocate 3...d6 in his article, aiming for an improved version of the line, since White can no longer play Ne5.)

The Kieseritzky features very principled play by both sides. Black fights to hang onto his extra pawn, even at the cost of weakening his king-side with 3...g5; if unmolested, he will consolidate with ...Bg7 and ...h6. White further compromises his own king-side with 4.h4 in order to thwart this plan. In the olden days White often played 4.Bc4 instead, intending to sac a piece after 4...g4 5.0-0, the Muzio Gambit. This is rarely seen nowadays, since Black need not be so greedy. More solid is 4.Bc4 Bg7! 5.0-0 d6 (5...h6 and 5...Nc6 are also good). One example of this is Van de Wynkele-Semina, 1997, which continued 6.g3!? Nc6! 7.gxf4 gxf4 8.d4 Bg4 9.c3 Qf6 10.Qb3 0-0-0! Black won in 29 with an attack against White's gratuitously weakened king-side.

The game below is a short, sharp encounter between two 19th Century giants. I have altered its move order in order to illustrate a second trap. The game actually began 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 Bg7 (Paulsen's move, still considered strong today) 6.Nxg4?! (6.d4! is better) d5! 7.exd5?? Qe7+! The changed move order (3...d5 4.exd5 g5? (4...Nf6 is correct)) shows an ill-advised attempt to combine 3...g5 with the Modern Defense 3...d5, a strong and solid defense popular today. (See diagram.) This could have been refuted by 5.Qe2+! (mentioned in Volume 1 of Estrin and Glaskov's 1982 book Play the King's Gambit). Then Black drops a pawn or two after 5...Qe7 6.Nxg5; 5...Be7 6.Nxg5; or 5...Ne7 6.Qe5! Rg8 7.Nxg5; and loses his queen after 5...Kd7?? 6.Ne5+ (6...Ke8/e7 7.Nc6+; 6...Kd6 7.Nxf7+). Amazingly, no one seems to have actually played this very strong move. www.365chess.com has seven games with this line, including one by Alekhine a year before his death. None of the players found 5.Qe2+!

The second trap is seen after 7...Qe7+!, an echo of the first. Once again a check on the King 2 (e2 for White, e7 for Black) spells disaster for the opponent, since an interposition will cause the opponent's piece on King Knight 4 (g5 for Black, g4 for White) to hang. Alternatively, a king move will leave the king fatally exposed. Paulsen had pulled off this same trap in a simul a year before. There he had played 9...Bxg4+ 10.Kxg4 Nf6+ 11.Kh3 Qd7+, when White could still have put up some resistance with 12.g4! fxg3+ 13.Kg2! Qxd5+ 14.Qf3 Qxf3+ 15.Kxf3. Although Black still has a won game after 15...Rg8, surviving to a bad ending is more than White deserves. This time around Paulsen improved with the bone-crushing 9...h5! Then 10.Nf2 Bg4+! quickly induced resignation in Gruzman-Arkanov, Russia (ch) 1978. Mackenzie tried 10.Bb5+, when 10...c6, 10...Kf8 (Fritz's preference), and Paulsen's 10...Kd8 all win with ease. Paulsen checkmated Mackenzie in short order.

The Pinnacle of Manly Chess

Surely the above is an apt description of the King's Gambit. (If "Manly Chess" is too sexist, please substitute "Swashbuckling Chess" or some such.) If you don't believe me, take a look at Spassky-Bronstein, USSR Championship 1960. And of course the Immortal Game. But then again, there's yawners like Ivanchuk-Nakamura, Cap d'Agde 2010, an endgame grind.

In my old age I have belatedly taken up the gambit, at least in unrated Internet blitz games against random players. Very manly, I know. Here is one such example. Since I usually prefer Pusillanimous Chess, I didn't know book against the Falkbeer Counter Gambit. Although my 6.Be3 has been played, it turns out that the main line is the picturesque 6.Nf3 Bc5 7.Qe2 Bf5 8.Nc3 Qe7 9.Be3!, when 9...Nxc3 is met by 10.Bxc5!, as in the brilliancy Bronstein-Tal, 1968. Later in the game continuation, my 10.Be2? got me in trouble; correct was 10.Qe2! playing for a favorable ending. They do such things in the modern King's Gambit (is that an oxymoron?). Despite my weak opening play I managed to mate my opponent off the board in traditional KG fashion.

Rybka solves the King Gambit?

If you know Bobby Fischer's famous article "A Bust to the King's Gambit" (PDF), you might be interested in this ChessBase article.

Alpha nerds discussed the matter in some detail on Slashdot, which is particularly interesting in light of this followup article (which certainly changed my attitude!)  Of course, I currently play 1...e5, so I would have an inherent bias.....

Jasaitas - Braswell, CICL, 3/1/2012

Tony was kind enough to share his notes to this game. These annotations, lighthearted yet informative, were written after Isaac's death, but days before any of us in the chess community learned the sad news. Both players had fun!

The game itself demonstrate that good things can happen to those who persevere in the face of adversity.

(Incidentally, the ratings are CICL ratings, not USCF.  While Tony's rating is probably representative of his current strength (his USCF rating, somewhat stale, is above 2000), Isaac's last USCF rating will be 2075, and he peaked above 2100.)

Judit Polgar beats Topalov & Ivanchuk to win in Mexico City

Story at ChessVibes.

Ivanchuk beats Nakamura in Cap d'Agde finals

Two King's Gambits!  Although Ivanchuk tricked Nakamura into a good-vs.-bad-bishop ending in the first game, Nakamura's anti-King's Gambit system is utterly respectable and fun!

1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5!?

Coverage at The Week in Chess (games are in drop-down box above the board) and Europe-Echecs.

How Not to Play Against the Falkbeer Counter-Gambit

If you're going to play an opening as sharp as the King's Gambit, you'd better know what you're doing. If not, you might just lose the shortest game of a Chess Olympiad (see below). After 3...Qh4+, White is losing at least a rook, after 4.g3 Qxe4+ 5.Qe2(!) Qxh1.

Incidentally, I once saw a tournament game where Black played 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6!? (unusual, but playable; one idea is the countergambit 3.Nf3 f5!? invented by Miles). Now White innocently played 3.fxe5?? and Black just as innocently responded 3...Nxe5??, missing the crushing 3...Qh4+!

ADDENDUM: Incredibly, it seems that after 2...Nc6 3.fxe5??,
over 80% of players have played 3...Nxe5??