Lesson #5: How to Deal with Gambits?

Hey everyone,

I have taken a break from blogging on chess.com. I was trying to recover my ratings.

So let's dive right in to oday's lesson.

In this lesson, we are going to be going over how to play AGAINST gambits.

So let's start with a brief introduction that is necessary to understand.

Henry Edward Bird (1829-1908) was an English chess master. (Remember, FIDE didn't exist back then). He is most famously known for his own creation, the Bird's Opening. It is basically Dutch defensed, but reversed.

However, Bird's opening was met with this dangerous gambit --- the From's Gambit. In the From's Gambit, black sacrifices a pawn to open lines in white's defense, forcibly creating dangerous threats.

Let's look at it.

So now, the problem is: are all gambits bad for those who accept it?

The answer is: NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. IT IS 100% OK TO ACCEPT GAMBITS IN SOME CASES.

So looking at the Bird's opening, you can see that accepting the gambit is actually quite risky for white. There're people who played 2. d3, declining the gambit, or 2. fxe5 d6 3. e4 in order to decline the gambit.

Let me show you an example played by NM Robert Ramirez against me. I lost due to a blunder under pressure. Before that, the game was balanced.

I felt so disappointed because I botched the game. I am capable of seeing it, but I couldn't at that time (I WAS VERY RUSHED). 

Oof.

Nevertheless, in some cases, it's better not to accept gambits.

So what if you do accept the gambit?

Let's look at this example.

You can see that white's attack failed miserably. The reason is because white rushed too much. He/she thought that he/she is able to overrun me, but after I castled, the game is pretty much over.

I played quite accurately in this game. This line is very good against Smith-Morra Gambit.

However, in Lesson #3 (linked here: https://www.chess.com/blog/leonquinplayz/warning-dont-fall-into-these-10-iq-traps), I explained three traps. The last one is about the Smith-Morra gambit.

Because my friends asked me to show my poor games, I will show you this one.

Simple trap? Yet this is something you MUST watch out against. It is very deadly.

So you can see that it is okay sometimes to accept gambits. However, you must choose GOOD LINES AND PLAY VERY ACCURATELY. 

An example against a CM. This is one of my best games. I forced CM Jean Paul Sebban to resign in 26 moves.

So that's one of my best games. Yes, there are a lot of inaccuracies, but I am still very satisfied.

Finally, we have Capablanca's immortal vs James Frank Marshall. It is such a famous game, and you can find hundreds of analyses on this game. Here's the link: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095025

So showing you these games have several takeaways.

1. Choose a good line. Try not to play bad openings like Grob Opening (Still, I feel very sorry for FM Fabrice Wantiez for being destroyed because he played the Grob Opening-themed game miserably). There are a lot of lines, and choose a good one.

2. Stay on high alert. I could easily lost that 8|0 blitz game (rapid on lichess.org) if I wasn't careful enough. Play slow when you are playing a slow game (rapid/classical/correspondence).

3. Create counterplay. You can see that through invading e5 with my knight, I pretty much stopped CM Jean Paul Sebban's counterplay. Still, I wasn't accurate enough, but he was not accurate either. He blundered a LOT.

4. Give back material whenever necessary. In some openings (e.g. King's Gambit Accepted: Fischer Variation), it is necessary to give back sacrificed material. REMEMBER: THE KING IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ANYTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!

5. Move your king to a safe place (as seen in Capablanca vs Marshall, New York, 1918). In the game, Capablanca played so fluently! TOTALLY 1000 IQ!!! This is not a joke. His process is very smooth and I just felt that there will be NO better defenses after this game to deal with the Marshall Counterattack (Although Frank James Marshall lost, we still deserve to RESPECT HIM GREATLY. Not just because he created the Marshall Counterattack, but also because HE PLAYED VERY WELL ALSO. The second place ALSO DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED GREATLY).

So this is it. 

Have a nice day!!!