---

The King’s Gambit is an aggressive and fun opening. It’s also an opening that I don’t personally play. Although the King’s Gambit is somewhat unsound with the Stockfish evaluation at -0.3 on white’s second move of f4, the player with the white pieces potentially gets the centre, and the opportunity for some tricky moves and more rapid development. In fact, I’ve found that I typically lose against people who played the King’s Gambit, or at least, end up in a bad position. I think at the beginner-intermediate level, I don’t encounter the King’s Gambit very often, and those who play it know the typical opening lines much better than me. From that perspective, I’ve started using the “Modern Defense”, or d5, on move 3 after accepting the King’s Gambit. Let’s have a look at a game from today.

After accepting the King’s Gambit, white will typically play Nf3 to prevent black from playing Qh4+. The next best move according to Stockfish for black is now g5, immediately defending the pawn on f4. This is common, and reasonably obvious, and is the most common sequence of moves in the King’s Gambit in the Lichess database. In contrast, d5, immediately counterattacking in the centre and giving up the pawn advantage, is the fifth most common move. As could be seen in this game, I made some pretty bad mistakes in the opening and early midgame, but I suspect that my opponent wasn’t familiar and couldn’t capitalise on their advantage. This allowed me to make a comeback and ultimately win the game.

I hope you found this game interesting, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/45874154463

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.05.09"]
[Round "?"]
[White "jadoon2008"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C36"]
[WhiteElo "1249"]
[BlackElo "1244"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "15:41:35 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nc3 Qe6+ 6. Be2 Be7 7. d4 Qg4 8. O-O Nc6 9. Ne5 f3 10. Bxf3 Qxd4+ 11. Qxd4 Nxd4 12. Be3 Nxc2 13. Nd5 Nxe3 14. Nxe3 Be6 15. Nd5 O-O-O 16. Nf4 Bf6 17. Nxe6 fxe6 18. Nf7 Bd4+ 19. Kh1 Nf6 20. Nxh8 Rxh8 21. Rab1 Rd8 22. Rfd1 g5 23. b4 h5 24. Be2 h4 25. g3 hxg3 26. hxg3 Ne4 27. Kg2 Nc3 28. Rxd4 Rxd4 29. Re1 Rd2 30. Kf2 Rxa2 0-1