Are there reasons to play King's Gambit over Queen's Gambit?

@Optimissed - I'm sorry that a database of over 377 million games played does not abide by your preconceptions. Apparently those 377 millions games don't conform to how people actually play chess as opposed to those theoretical books written by masters. Everyone knows that the conventional wisdom is always right.

This is a pretty bad explanation. I searched (briefly) for the author's rating (Michael Stephen Vargas). I didn't find it, but even if he were rated as high as something like CM, it would just mean he was much worse at teaching chess than playing it.

It's certainly a sub-par choice if you're in a situation where people know you, and are preparing for you. Not because it's "solved" (poor word choice) "to be better for black" but because black has many good options, and as white you have to learn them all.

Other than the upkeep cost (you'll have to refresh the massive required theory now and then) black also has the choice on the type of game. Black can choose wild tactics, or calm positions. White does not get to choose.

And for "high-tier" tournaments (a term he needs to define) it's a problem if black is the one choosing whether or not there will be winning chances, and whether or not they want to equalize.

So it's a poor choice for 3 reasons, none of them having to do what the engine's evaluation or being "solved" (lol).

I used to play on the high school team and was rated around 1500. I haven't played competitively since and no longer take my ADD medication, so my calculation skills are practically nonexistent anymore. I wouldn't know the number of draws at 2000+ since our top board was only about 1700.

But how on earth is this relevant to anything? This is an online web site and we are playing online games

And I'm sorry that you don't believe the statistics, but I have no reason to believe that they would fake them. Keep in mind that these are online games, so it includes all time controls, including classical, though to be fair, the number of classical games is tiny. Would you like me to subtract the bullet games? That's easily done, but I doubt the overall narrative will change.

Their rating system is different and highly compressed. At lower ratings the difference with chesscom is very high, but the difference at very high ratings is small. I didn't put in games at 1800 and 2200 because it didn't change the narrative and would make the post even more spammy looking—they basically show the same story.

And I think you're quibbling over unimportant details. The point is that you can play the KG with as much success at the QG. Nitpicking at this or that detail makes it look like you are making interesting points, but you are not actually proving anything. I have evidence, you have conventional wisdom. It's as simple as that.

Sure, but my point (and I know you're mostly talking to thrillerfan) is that some openings require more work than others to have "as much success as" other openings.

I wouldn't call the KG "bad" but I'd call it impractical. For the same amount of work with a different opening you'd have better results, IMO.

I haven't heard this... was this in the 80s? Because if so, that analysis is both 40 years old, and didn't make use of engines...

Agreed. Two of the very reasons why I just gave up on the KG was because of the massive theory involved to handle it properly and that black just has lots of good moves and variations at their disposal.

Yes, there were engines in the 1980s but... the second Deep Blue match was in 1996, and its win over Kasparov was a bit dubious, and in any case it wasn't available for people to use for analysis. I'd say commercially available engines weren't definitely better than the world champion until the early 2000s. I recall some Kramnik Fritz match (among others).

As for humans being as good as computers, I'll side step that completely and make the simple observation that humans analyze with engines better than they analyze without engines

@optimissed - I'm getting annoyed at your baseless and bombastic assertions without evidence.

How about this. This is 2200 & 2500 rated players in classical and rapid. Blitz and bullet have been removed. Happy?

KG: 48% win white / 46% win black

QG: 49% win white / 41% win black.

Yes, the QG does marginally better, but only marginally. The overall narrative does not change.

@llama47 - I play the KG because it's fun, and because I started playing it because Judith Polgar played it. It's fun for me and I don't think I lose anything by playing it.

Sure, it's fine to play it. I don't think it's a bad opening.

And even if you'll become a professional player later in life... basically all strong players used to play less-than-professional openings in their early years.

@llama47 - well, I'll never be a professional player, and I'll never be what most people even think of as good. When I close my eyes and try to visualize a board, I get a 404 error screen. I can't even memorize lines by notation because it all becomes a jumble in my mind. But for some reason I do like chess, even though I'm bad at it. So I'm not going to choose an opening that Magnus plays.

When you loudly protest that all the evidence that I present is bad or irrelevant, and then assert without evidence that you're right and I'm wrong because you know better, that seems pretty bombastic to me. Now you're accusing me of faking data. I told you that I removed the bullet and blitz games and you just said that I'm lying.

Everything that I've written is 100% verifiable. Go to that other website, click on analysis board, then click on the ratings you would like to look at and the types of games you'd like to include. That's it. Simple. Do it. I dare you.

The database for rapid and classical of 2200 and 2500 players shrinks to a measly 4.1 million games. I showed you the results and the narrative doesn't change. Once again, you are quibbling around the edges without making any substantive arguments.

And when someone says something like "can you prove this?" the implication is that I'm not being up front. Don't be coy, you know exactly what you were saying. You were openly doubting my credibility and you know it.

Good Lord, I'm not trying to dominate anyone. From the beginning I just put forth some data showing that the KG was not bad, and when people questioned it, I explained why it was not bad. If you can find a hole in anything that I've presented, then I'm ok with that.

The only thing you have is "well this doesn't apply to OTB chess" and I have not argued with this and admitted that it's beyond my scope of knowledge. Had I tried to be domineering, I wouldn't be so circumspect and willing to admit the limitations of my analysis.

I prefer the Kings gambit because it's more aggressive 

This is the part where I selected time control and rating. The bunny is rapid and the turtle is classical. Please note that as I've stated above, no matter what combination of time control and rating you choose, the numbers change a little, but the overall narrative does not.

This part shows white responses to e4e5 on move two. Notice that f4 (the KG) is the second most common response and notice the win rate. The fact that Nf3 is played about 10x more often than f4 and about 16x more often than Nc3 (the Vienna Game) should comport with your expectations. I cut it off at the third move because it makes really no difference to anything and just makes the post longer.

This part shows white responses to d4d5 on move two. Notice that c4 (the QG) is the most common response and notice the win rate. The second move, Nc3, is transpositional, and the third move Bf4 usually leads to the London. The breakdown should also comport with your expectations. There are obviously other move orders that can lead to a QG position, such as when black plays Nf6 on the first move or white starts with c4. I haven't included them all here, but suffice it to say that the numbers are roughly equal to this chart with differences of a percentage point or two in win%.

Your argument is "this isn't true because I know it can't be true." If that's what you choose to believe, then this ends. It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion with people who refuse to believe the data.

As to your question "why is the percentage of draws so small?" I can only answer that I don't know and we can only speculate. The data are what they are.

I choose to believe in a science-based approach to understanding how likely I am to win or lose with a particular opening. I'm not going to believe some dude in a chess forum who, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, thinks something isn't true. I also believe that the world is round, that a horse dewormer does nothing to help with COVID, and that astrologists can't predict the future. But hey, believe what you want.

So there's this great film that you've probably not seen because you're from the UK. It's called Moneyball, and it's ostensibly about baseball, but it's really a film about science vs. the entrenched conventional wisdom. In it, the Oakland Athletics were faced with losing all of their best players and having a payroll 1/10th that of some of the largest teams. They decided to adopt a strict statistics based approach to the game. Those who "really knew" baseball laughed and belittled them and would say things like "if you knew anything about baseball then you would do such stupid things." Meanwhile, the nerds with their computers put together a team that came close to the championship and put together a winning streak that was the longest in American League history. Since that time, the old timers who "really know" baseball have been left by the wayside and all teams have adopted a more scientific approach. This is essentially a true story, with only minor plot points change for Hollywood reasons.

So you see, I may not know as much about chess as you do, but that proves nothing. The numbers don't lie. You may claim to be more intelligent than I, but you refuse to acknowledge what's staring you in the face, and that doesn't seem very smart to me.

So when losing an argument you resort to ad hominems and guilt by association. That's a very smart deflection tactic, I'll give you that. When you can't beat their well-reasoned argument, you just start throwing poo. Yep. Super intelligent.

My man, you take my destroying your arguments as a personal affront. I directly refute your points one by one, and go out of my way to provide you with evidence for every little objection that you make. I also politely deferred to your greater knowledge of OTB chess. You were the one who insinuated that I was being disingenuous. You were the one who said that you were smarter than I am. You are the one who said I knew nothing about chess. It seems to me that you're the one who has made this personal and all I've done is stick to the arguments on the page.

You play KG when u want a result, u play QG when u want a draw, simple

I've admitted that the KG is a bad opening for masters. The data proves this so I bow to what the science says. The only argument that I've ever made--the ONLY one--is that the KG is no worse than the QG, in terms of chances of winning, for the vast majority of players. The data are irrefutable. I've argued that the conventional wisdom that it shouldn't be played is based upon the unsound inference that what applies to masters applies to everyone. I'm not stupid. I know that the opening is theoretically sub-optimal and that against the best players, white is struggling to maintain equality. This is an irrefutable fact. But how many of us on this web site are masters? Very few, that's how many. Telling an intermediate player that he or she shouldn't play the KG because it's trash is just not borne out by the facts. That's the only point that I've ever made. I've never said that they KG is the greatest thing ever, nor have I ever implied that it was better than the QG.