TopNotch wrote on 07/31/21 at 23:56:53:


I heard a quote from Wesley So that Fischer was the Stockfish of his generation, makes sense

I don´t own Nepo´s course but chessable´s opening explorer reveals that he follows your line up to move 22 and then he seems to continue with 23.Kf3.

I have no idea how he evaluates the resulting position but perhaps the bishop pair and play against h7/f7 gives White enough compensation for the pawn and reasonable drawing chances.

TopNotch wrote on 07/31/21 at 15:45:18:


It seems that Nepo is recommending the Knight’s Gambit and somewhat surprisingly against 3...g5 it’s the Kieseritzky 4 h4 g4 5 Ne5.

In the intro video, after 5...Nf6, instead of the traditional main lines of 6.Bc4 or 6.d4, Nepo suggests opting for the very old forcing line
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 Nf6 and n6.Nxg4 Nxe4 7.d3 Ng3 8.Bxf4 Nxh1
(Here 8…Qe7+ is also quite critical, I’ve always thought.)
9.Qe2+ Qe7 10.Nf6+ Kd8 11.Bxc7+ Kxc7 12.Nd5+ Kd8 13.Nxe7 Bxe7,  which is at least as old as Baucher – Morphy, Paris 1858 and now Nepo suggests 14.Qf3, which is also the engine’s suggestion (Stockfish 14).

I wonder what Nepo will give against the 5...Qe7 line, mentioned by MNb, which so irritated Shaw, who said "it is ugly, clumsy and crude. And it equalises comfortably". Shaw conntinues with 6 d4 d6 7 Nxg4 Qxe4+ 8 Qe2 Qe7!, fighting for tempo, with approximate equality. That seems about right and I don't see how White can vary favourably. Of course, it's still a game; both sides have weakened kingsides; White has more of the centre but Black has a lead in development.

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is definitely a big gun and I would think this course would irresistible to anyone currently playing the King's Gambit.

I have John Shaw's 2013 tome on the King's Gambit. He had many strong recommendations in the lines that I reviewed.

Martin Lockander surprised me by advocating the Schallop variation, 1e4 e5 2f4 exf 3Nf3 Nf6, for black in 2015. Prior to that, I had never seen anyone recommend it. Mathias Wahls claimed in 2020 that the Schallop is a refutation of the King's Gambit. It should be noted that the Schallop can transpose to the modern after 4Nc3 d5 5exd.

A search of games after 1e4 e5 2f4 exf 3Nf3 Nf6 for the last 5 years show white scoring 50%. Restricting the search to players rated above 2400 and black does better.  Notable is Carlsen's loss to Ding in 2020. If play transposes to the modern, overall statistics for the last 5 years are still 50%, and again black does a little better among stronger players. A cautionary word about statistics. They tend to change with every sample, for example after every subsequent move, for different years, or different rating levels.

It is clear from Nepomniachtchi's Chessable video that he covers the Schallop. I think that section might be critical for anyone playing the King's Gambit for white, or who wishes to play the Schallop variation as black.

The ChessPublishing archives covers the King's gambit in several games, including games on the Schallop.

If "best play" is equal or unbalanced, I might be satisfied. My opponents seldom play at that level, nor do I. Perhaps more important are the results in reasonable sidelines. If you know theory a little better than your opponent, results will change yet again.

I think the main thing is to know how to make the most of your chances. It certainly helps if someone champions the opening.

I thought you King's Gambit fanatics would enjoy this: https://www.chessable.com/long-live-the-kings-gambit/course/82071/ ;

@Paddy, proustiskeen,

the way to do it is to go to your browser and look for the source code, eg in Safari, it is under Develop tab, choose "show page source", which opens up a window with html code, scroll until you find the game, then it is just a matter highlight and copy and paste into your pgn file.
For the latter, I create a pgn file using, eg ChessX, then open the pgn file using TextEdit, paste the pgn game into pgn file in textEdit. Just make sure you copy over all the relevant pgn headers etc. For USCF website, you will need to clean up a bit of the text, eg the quote marks come in ASCII code. Just use find and replace within TextEdit.
Some websites do not give a pgn text in html which means the above method does not work.
Chess base's games are now very easy to download, 'cos they will give you the pgn text which you can cut and paste into your own pgn file.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need clarification.

Paddy - were you able to download that game directly or did you have to input it yourself? If you were able to download directly, how did you do it?

I came across this very recent game at the US Federation website:

[Event "52nd American Open"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2016.11.29"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Gareyev, T."]
[Black "Khachiyan, M."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C34"]
[PlyCount "85"]
[EventDate "2016.12.14"]
[SourceTitle "https://new.uschess.org"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Ne7 4. d4 d5 5. Nc3 dxe4 6. Nxe4 Nd5 7. Bd3 Be7 8. c4 Ne3 9. Bxe3 fxe3 10. Qe2 Bb4+ 11. Nc3 O-O 12. O-O c5 13. Nd5 Nc6 14. a3 Bd2 15. Nxd2 exd2 16. dxc5 Be6 17. Qxd2 b6 18. cxb6 Bxd5 19. cxd5 Qxb6+ 20. Qf2 Ne5 21. Qxb6 axb6 22. Rfd1 Rfd8 23. d6 Nxd3 24. Rxd3 Rac8 25. d7 Rc7 26. Rad1 Kf8 27. Rd6 Rb7 28. a4 Ke7 29. Kf2 Rdxd7 30. Rxd7+ Rxd7 31. Rxd7+ Kxd7 32. Ke3 Kd6 33. b4 Kd5 34. a5 bxa5 35. bxa5 Kc5 36. Ke4 Kb5 37. Ke5 Kxa5 38. Kd6 Kb4 39. Ke7 f5 40. Kf7 f4 41. Kxg7 h5 42. h4 Kc3 43. Kg6 1-0

and was about to post it here with the comment "here's a rare recent example of a strong player employing the King's Gambit" when I paused and decide to check my database of games played in 2016.

I was a little surprised to find 36 KG games played by players rated over 2400 FIDE, with White scoring about 74%. Admittedly a lot of these games were played at fast time limits, but even so...

I've not checked to see how this compares with previous years, but maybe we are seeing at least a modest revival?!