Hello good chaps of Chess.com,

I have been playing for years now... WITHOUT an opening repertoire. That means I play what I find interesting at the moment - won some, lost some, drawn some.

I figured if I want consistent results, I need to face this aspect of chess [which I'm not a huge fan of] - developing a repertoire.

And since most of my training has been focused on tactics, I think it would be best to adopt a gambit opening repertoire.

Do you have any lines to suggest?

Perhaps a book or an online resource that can walk me through the basics of a gambit opening?

Any help would be VERY much appreciated.

Dualbishops

Well, what I would suggest is starting with only strong gambits. For example, you may choose to play the Benko but not the Latvian. Then, against openings with no excellent gambit choice, memorize some of the lines that can lead to gambits 10 or 15 moves down the road. The opening is necessarily decided in the first 5 moves, so find some great gambits; especially if the lines are pretty much forcible. If your opponent plays a sideline, it is probably weak, so attack it.

You are forgetting the most played lines though and all the easy ways to sidestep it all.

Danish:

Smith Morra:

Albin:
Can't argue here you can't really avoid it.
Always a nice surprise.

Latvian:
Dubious indeed, lots of fun though.
What I love about the gambit the most is that if you play defensive moves as white you actually get into a bad position.

I played this by coincedence two weeks in a row:

It's a major mistake ofcourse. But it is a tempting move.
It shows that it's quite hard to find the right move for white without much knowledge about the opening. Like I said, dubious but fun.

I would recommend playing the Evan's gambit. I am not a good player whatsoever, but I find it very interesting. If the gambit is not accepted there are some very sharp and interesting variations anyway.

May I see those statistics?

If you are really crazy here's the halloween gambit

lol its a knight sac tho

Was it Steinitz who said that the best way to refute a gambit was to accept it?

Granted, my tactics could still use A LOT of improvement. That's precisely why I want to play gambits, to force me into tactical positions where I need to be alert.

Well, if you have suggestions aside from playing gambits to improve tactical skill, we'd love to hear it. Perhaps sharp but non-gambit lines?

Dualbishops

PS: I like the recommendations and I will look deeper into them. Although the Danish-approach to the Sicilian is quite far-fetched I'd say. :D

I have dabbled with both the Morra and Wing Gambit of the Sicilian. But the Danish-approach of sac'ing c3 and b2 against the Sicilian? I don't think that would cut it.

Black has ...e6 (which the original poster has mentioned) and it significantly reduces White's attacking potential.

Gambits aside, what would be good sharp openings to have in a Club Player's arsenal? Without being too heavy on theory of course.

Dualbishops

Openings, even gambits, cannot make you into a more aggressive player.  It's a mental attitude.

Most of us started out wanting to be aggressive players, attack, sac, mate.  But I ran upon a group of strong aggressive players as a newbie, and my style developed more solid, not creating weaknesses, playing solid positional chess and good endings.  I improved rapidly, won a few tournaments, and was competitive against stronger players.

But after a few years, I felt my play was becoming stagnant.  I wasn't looking for the counterchances like I once did, or just not finding them.  I needed a change, and was thinking about switching from my long-played d4 to e4, despairing of learning all the theory besides the French and C-K.  An old friend told me not to do it.  "You don't need more dangerous openings," he advised, "You need to be a more dangerous player."

So I resolved to force myself to be more aggressive by actively looking for pawn sacs or even speculative Exchange or pieces sacs, just to make myself be more aggressively active to justify them.  This change helped a lot.

Not so much in my attitude, although I did achieve more chances for aggressive play.  The bigger change was I gave a more serious look at pawn sacs for initiative, and where I had searched for compensation before trying them, I decided to just go for it if there appeared any reasonable compensation.  I began to think about things I had been discarding, and found many more chances.

Don't change your openings, change your mind. 

Agree with comment above. There's no attacking and passive openings, only attacking and passive players. 

This is a very good point you've made sir!

A good case in point is Topalov who turned the Caro Kann (viewed as dull and drawish) into a counter-attacking defense for Black.

Good thing, I think I have the inclination to play aggressively. Here's a game I played against Crafty 23 on "Sparring Mode" (Harder Setting) running on Fritz 13 GUI:

It's always nice to hear input of someone who can wipe the floor with me chess-wise.

Dualbishops