Danish Cracker Cracker

The Danish Gambit is a great opening for improvement. It is not a lazy person's opening, as in playing it you must use your calculation and tactical vision a bit more than in normal openings. Playing it also teaches about using the initiative and the creative potential of the pieces. Yet most people are scared to play this great improving opening. This is the equivalent of walking into a gym and everyone being inexplicably afraid to use one of the best pieces of equipment.

People are afraid to play it because of several so called refutations. One of which, the lines given in IM Pfren's blog post entitled "Danish Cracker", seems to get brought up most of the time the Danish Gambit is mentioned on the chess.com forums and it scares people away from playing it. Let's take a closer look at the line he gives in order to understand the reasons behind the moves and to see if White truly has anything to fear.