If the purpose of playing the Englund Gambit is to win an occasional game when an opponent blunders, fine.
if the purpose of your opening repertoire is to maximize your winning chances, find an opening repertoire that fits your needs. It won’t be the Englund Gambit.
yet so many people fall into its traps...
Truth in advertising: @gambit-man has no games as Black in his library here.
Masters score +60% as White. I score +60% here, and I almost exclusively face it in very fast time controls.
Boris Avrukh stated that it is Black’s worst possible response to 1.d4.
The Englund Gambit is neither theoretically good nor practically useful.
If it worked even just a little bit then it would be a great opening as no more London System no more Trompowsky no more worries about move orders concerning 2,Nf3 or 2,c4 etc but unfortunately as long as White doesn't fall into the trap Black has an extremely miserable position.
The Budapest Gambit however is a completely different kettle of fish and can serve you very well.
I like the Budapest so much I try to play it as White too 🙂
b3 d5 Nf3 c5 e4
The only way to make it a little bit playable is to play like Joseph Blackburne
d4 d6 c4 e5
d4 d6 Nf3 e5 dxe5 Nc6
d4 d6 e4 e5 dxe5 Nc6
e4 e5 Nf3 d6 d4 Bg4 dxe5 (dreaming of the opera house) Nc6
You can just about make a blitz opening repertoire out of this.
yet so many people fall into its traps...
Truth in advertising: @gambit-man has no games as Black in his library here.
Masters score +60% as White. I score +60% here, and I almost exclusively face it in very fast time controls.
Boris Avrukh stated that it is Black’s worst possible response to 1.d4.
The Englund Gambit is neither theoretically good nor practically useful.
i do play OTB as well...
I was able to defeat the London System in only 11 moves in the following 2+1 bullet game.
Of course White played extremely badly.
In this game which was played at a time control of 5 minutes each with no increment White also played extremely badly and I was able to checkmate in 15 moves.
e4 d6 d4 e5 but is equally the same as d4 d6 e4 e5 👍
Do you have any examples of your games in the Englund Gambit to share?
usually played in blitz tournaments, where recording of moves is a bit silly
The following is a quick knockout with the reverse Budapest which features a common tactic. What's surprising is that I played this in a *correspondence* game where both sides had 3 days in which to make their moves!
Hopefully these 3 quick wins will inspire those who like to gambit 🙂
The Englund gambit only has one trap Qxb2 Bc3 Bb4 but if White plays Nc3 instead of Bc3 then Black is almost lost.
ok...