The King's Gambit

This isn't a pro-con thread on the King's Gambit, but more or less an alert to a recent (March 5, 2014 ) Bobby Ang article in "Business World Online," entitled (ahem....) "The King’s Gambit."

Not often does this opening find a feature role in a mainstream publication.

Ang mentions discussing this with his "good friend from Spain who is quite an expert on the King’s Gambit -- Prof. Jesus Seoane Sepulveda" who suggested  several good books on the KG:
"Play the King’s Gambit," Volume 1&2 by Y.B. Estrin and I.B. Glazkov.
"Winning With the King’s Gambit "by Joe Gallagher.
"The King’s Gambit: A Modern View of a Swashbuckling Opening" by Neil McDonald.
"The Fascinating King’s Gambit" by Thomas Johansson.

Ending with "The King's Gambit," ..."a new book by GM John Shaw [that] will become the new Bible on the King’s Gambit."  It features a line from what he calls Jesus Seoane’s 'immortal game.'

The game (below) was played when Jesus Seoane was only 12.

I've included some lines but you can read the winner's really fine annotations in the article itself:

Nice game.

Shaw actually recomemnds 4.Nc3 for White as in this game. Shaw also claims to have refuted the Bishop's Gambit (3.Bc4) which is advocated for White in an upcoming book by Tim Taylor.

Good times for the KG.

Isn't it though?

I think so. I smell a comeback. I even played it OTB last month.

I hope so! I love plaing against the King's Gambit.

and I like playing the KG against people who like playing against the KG.

Well i have to read this Tim Taylor book. I loved the King's Gambit till i started playing online chess about 6 years ago(not counting chess.com). I did not feel safe playing it as it opens up the King's castled position combined my numerous hours playing did equal a blunder for me.

But that was when my Opening Chess Theory was not solid. When i started playing Vote Chess with several groups i did not find any members that played the KG. After experience with VC i noticed that many members memorize moves so that led me not to search out a group that played the KG. Just to sum it up my faith/belief in it became weaker..... Correction my belief in my ability to be able to use became weaker.

Looking foward to adding the KG back to my long list of weapons.

Is there some reason why every KG game I see, black always defends that pawn with a King side pawn? I would never ever ever defend that pawn with a king side of pawn.

Is there a reason why people do this? Or is there just a secret societ of people dedicated to keeping the KG alive with terrible moves like G5?

When you mention every game you see.... I firtst thought of Vote Chess which i am pretty sure you did not mean. Are you talking about games at chess.com? Games in books?

Nigel Short says the good thing about the KG is that there are so many refutations, black can't decide which, and gets them mixed up.

Can you post a couple of them or a link to the reference.

no, he was kidding!. The joke presumably is to do with how many lines are supposedly refuted when they aren't really. Short plays the KG himself, I remember plenty of calls for it in 1993, though that was never going to happen.

g5 is not as bad a move as you claim, and is arguably the most critical move in the entire opening (3. ...d5 could be argued to be better if you are into a relatively dry game where you still run into problems if white knows what he/she is doing) g5 threatens quite a few things, 

1. it threatens g4 at some point kicking the knight from defense of h4 allowing the queen to come to a valuable attacking spot.

2. it supports the f4 pawn

3. it opens lines for development 

4. It creates the potential for a semi open file for black to utilize

I don't know why g5 could be considered weak, every other move either looses, is pasive, or leads to mostly dry games that white is attempting to avoid.

The public threads in majoriy agree with you on that point. In the past month i have been wondering which would i prefer in the face of a g5 move.

I like Bc4 against g5 simply because I think it has more venom than other moves. It also feels more natural to me, Nc3 does have its merits, but I haven't had any real trouble facing it other than getting into complex middle games where I (and my opponents) have blundered horribly.

my very humble low rating opinion is don't do it

here is a paper that may interest you

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1402/1402.6791.pdf

read that paper, don't agree with it to say the least, they are trying to make the game scientific when there is an aspect of art that is all to often forgotten.

one of the few instances where a smothered mate occurs in the center

Very interesting, though that was quoting John shaw, so I'm going to trust shaw and his engines ant time of analysis over you, though historically speaking white does have to fight for anything in this line