Excellent points.  Pavasovic's play looks good for Black.  In the Morphy line, though, looks like 9..Be6 may be the culprit.  Do either 9..Nd7 or 9..f6 improve?

I was curious enough to look this up in a few handy sources (NCO, Small ECO and Yusupov's C42 monograph).  They differ as to whether the B-K should lead to "compensation" (or in some cases equality) or a slight advantage for Black.  Same story with the continuation of the gambit after 4...Nc6 5. 0-0.  Perhaps this is consistent with the view that the gambit should be categorised in between "correct" and "complete rubbish."

Keano wrote on 06/02/06 at 07:46:45:


I'm not so sure about that it's "complete rubbish;" Keres gave it a pretty favorable treatment in the old "bis" series, as I recall.  I don't recall the main line precisely, but I seem to remember it involves a white knight on h4, black pawns on d6,e5, f6 and g6, and White playing f2-f4 and sometimes f4-f5.  Maybe White doesn't have full compensation, but is Black's task so easy?

Relatedly, if Black wants to decline the Boden-Kieseritzky, one way to do it is  1. e4 e5  2. Nf3 Nf6  3. Bf4 Nxe4 4. Nc3 Nc6!  5. 0-0 Be7!?.  Now White is out of gambit moves and he has no choice but to go in for 6. Nxe4 d5.   However I am less certain of the merits of the "fork trick" with 0-0, ...Be7 thrown in.  I do recall that the last, 1918 edition of Bilguer's Handbuch had a treatment of this line.

You know, one of the key tricks you teach chess kids is to play 4...Nxe4 after 1. e4. e5  2. Nf3 Nc6  3. Bc4 Nf6  4. Nc3, which comes up in a million kidchess games.  But you don't usually teach kids about 5. 0-0!?, because it will never be played by an opposing kid.

Try

http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1107588302/0#0