One of the greatest controversies of 2020 (not really) came in December when I posted my Ultimate Poll: "What is your favourite chess gambit opening?"

Of the exhaustive wikipedia.org list that I used, I did not include the most important chess gambit of all: The "Anderssen Gambit!" (Not really)

The Chess.com user @Levent_Acemi was the first to realise my blunder:

Till this day I still don't know what "Pog" means. I just thought it was those circular discs that was popular when I was a kid. "Pog" was merely just the start of this powder keg of controversy (Not really).

I immediately embarked on writing a detailed press release: It would be up to me to prove to the chess world that my poll was wrong! As one orange-faced philosopher once said: I should "Stop the count..." Alternatively, I could double-down and claim that the gambit is so uncommon by using science and statistics, and "strawman the argument" on the inclusion of the Anderssen gambit claiming that if I included this gambit, I might as well include the Botez Gambit!:

I thought that would be it... What followed next really surprised me...

Outrage! Scandal! How could I ever publish such nonsense. The controversy would end up reaching the highest authority in the land: Greta Thunberg...

I was mortified by my arrogance! Furthermore, hypocritically, how could I have not included this gambit that had only featured three times on the chess.com masters database, when I had honourably mentioned the "Jerome Gambit" - An opening with only one game on the database! It was up to me to repent for my chess sins and I decided to give the "Anderssen Gambit" the honest and constructive treatment it deserved by writing a blog post analysing this particular gambit. 

The Anderssen Gambit

Joking aside now, since the poll, I became very interested in reviewing this strange gambit line forged in the Romantic era. Adolf Anderssen, considered by many to be one of the greatest players of the early 1850s, (until the arrival of Paul Morphy) has many chess openings named after him: 

• The Anderssen Opening (1.a3) - "The earliest form of flexing in chess" - Nonetheless Anderssen had bested Morphy with it in one of their games.

• In the Spanish Game: The Anderssen variation - A line that has recently seen a surge of popularity in Super Grandmaster play to avoid the "Ruy Lopez - Open variation" and lines of the "Marshall Gambit"

• An "Accepted" gambit line in the Evans' gambit - 5...Be7 - The Anderssen variation - A safe retreating move where black decides, "I am up a pawn. Let's play defensively until we can reach  an end-game" 

The Anderssen Gambit

1. Complete control of the centre
2. Better development 
3. Nice semi-open files on the queenside to attack along

What could be so bad about this opening? I have seen way worse black gambits. If anything, it plays like a reversed Evan's gambit right?

The opening also reminded me of a line in the Two Knight's variation: The Ulvestad variation