gambits harmful for the prospects of improving ?

read the following I know he is a GM and he may be right on many things, but do you think he is entirely right on this one? Personally I think you can learn a lot playing gambits.

GM Lars Bo Hansen writes in his book "how chess games are won and lost"

"I often see players at clublevel play:

Blackmar-Diemer Gamibt, Latvian Gambit, Elephant Gambit, Morra Gambit, Wing Gambit or Owens defence

even among rather strong players. while these opening may lead to short term result due to the surprise effect -I believe building an opening repertoire on such opening is harmful for the prospects of improving in the long run. I only have one advice for ambitious players: drop such opening from your opening repertoire before it's to late"

I think advice like this is often over-generalized and applies more when an ambitious improving player has his sights on scalping titled players one day and perhaps getting said title as well.

For a shy, passive D-Class player who needs to learn to go for the jugular on each move,  I'd think a healthy dose of gambit play would do wonders until he/she learns to dole out moves based on initiative and aggression.   For somebody who already has this quality in droves, gambit play may not help so much.

I played nothing but Gambits till USCF 1500-1600 and soon realized how they were helping me win isolated games but had me returning home from a weekend tourney with a score no more than 2 or 3 out of 5. Really strong opponents would tear me apart so it almost seemed like the surprise/psychological value was diminishing as I faced stronger opposition.

I did get lucky a few times beating a top dog player at our club events, but he booked up all the busts and each time I played him again, I was essentially starting every game with a disadvantage ( with said gambit) which he capitalized on from the get-go.

I pretty much was at a crossroads where I had to ask "What is fun for me?"

Going to the clubs and weekend tourneys, beating other 1500-1600s with these openings and scalping a few titled players on bullet/blitz BUT not standing a chance of surprising a really strong player OTB with these systems. Sure, I'll lose a lot more than I win in open tourneys, but I'll get an awesome attacking combo once in a while. Was this the last stop on my "chess is fun" bus?

OR

beating stronger/1800+ players more consistently and not getting outplayed in an opening whenever I faced them OTB. Or better yet, being able to organically grow and nurture an opening repertoire that had tons of sound theory to back it up ... best of all => not having  to "re-learn" or uproot any opening system because it suddenly stopped becoming useful for the rating class I was competing against. Realizing that tactics, speculative sacrifices and combos are not the only fun thing about chess.

So that was a no brainer to me.  => so I upgraded most of my repertoire and it has been helping.  I get to actually go over more published annotated Master games in the sound-er openings than I ever did with the gambit lines as well. My coach helped me pick out sounder-versions of openings from the kind of open tactical positions I used to play with Gambits.

For example =>

Gave up the Danish, picked up the Scotch.
Gave up the Morra, picked up the Alapin.

I *do* regret not doing this earlier on. 

I think (and I certainly am not very good, so what do I know) that all this stuff about "you have to play nothing but open games until you are 2000 rated" is b.s.

Basically, anything you play will tend to lead to certain positions. As you play, you will learn how to handle those type positions. Maybe the positions that arise from the open games are more classical, but they are not inherently better than any other.

Bottom line, this is a game. It is supposed to be fun. Do what makes you happy, improvement will come with study, practice, tactical improvement, etc. regardless of what opening you play.

There will probably come a time when gambiteering holds you back, as the above poster related. But you can switch then, and will have an understanding of the gambits for when someone uses them against you.

Yep. I was bad at tactics when I was 11xx on this site and was play 1.e4 and playing sicilian against 1.e4. I had trouble increasing my chess skill and rating. Then I studied Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies" and decided to take up positional openings. I began to play 1.d4, the caro-kann, and the slav, and now my rating is close to 1500, or my turn-based is almost 1700.

The gambits listed here are basically all junk, except MAYBE the Morra where white might be able to scrape together enough compensation with best play. The Owens, on the other hand, is a hyper-modern opening and a rather passive one at that, and playing against white's big pawn centre is not easy for most club players.

So yeah, I basically agree with the GM when it comes to these openings. Stuff like the Blackmar Diemar or Latvian may surprise players and give you good results at first, but once they catch on and study the systems, you will essentially be playing handicapped, which only makes things harder for you.

Even worse IMO, and I also say this about "system" type openings like the London or KIA as well, is that you will usually get very similar positions over and over with some of these gambits, so in the long run your understanding of chess in general will be limited because of what you play.

There are some good gambits, however, like the Benko or Evan's gambit, but these are more about long-term pressure and initiative than about attacking or regaining the pawn right away, which leads me to believe they take more skill to handle than regular openings. So I wouldn't recommend playing a pawn down for "positional" compensation to a beginner, as they probably wouldn't handle the compensation the right way.

Really the best thing you can do IMO is to play openings that make sense to you, and aren't about playing for "traps" like the Latvian. This is often why 1.e4 e5 and 1.d4 d5 are recommended to amateur players as the moves are principled, easy to remember, and easy to understand. Why? Because almost everything in the open games makes sense. You follow principles by moving 1 or 2 pawns early, developing your pieces quickly to the centre of the board, and castling kingside soon so you don't get hacked in the centre. 1.d4 d5 is similar in some ways, except you don't have to castle so soon, but the point is the moves are logical and easy to understand, there is nothing weird like in some lines of the Sicilian or Pirc or whatever.

Of course playing symmetrical positions isn't to everyones taste, but whatever you choose, make sure it is sound, something that you understand, and make sure it leads to rich playable positions and isn't about catching someone in a cheap trap. Then you will make progress over time I think.

In their recent world championship match, both Anand and Topalov were gambiting pawns right and left, so there is certainly nothing wrong with playing gambits.  The Latvian and Elephant gambits aren't likely to win you many points at the GM level, but gambits like the Catalan Open or Semi-Slav Botvinnik are almost certainly sound and viable all the way up to the SuperGM level.  As you improve, perhaps there does come a point where you reserve the really unsound openings for blitz or rapid games, and restrict yourself to the sounder gambits when playing stronger opponents at classical time controls or correspondence.

Nevertheless, I must admit I've managed to win games with the Sicilian Wing, Smith-Morra and Elephant Gambits even at correspondence speeds.  One important thing to judge is how your opponent is likely to react to a gambit.  If they are good at counterattacking and finding refutations, perhaps it is better to play more soundly.  You can still play sharp chess even without sacing material.

Yes and No.

Yes, for your overall chess. You'll get good feeling for the game and train attacking.

No, for your opening repetoire. You will need something totally sound after a certain level.

@Riga: I wouldn't really say Anand and Topalov were 'gambitting' pawns right and left- they were more like middlegame pawn sacrifices...which brings me to my next sentence:

Instead of playing gambits, look for opportunities to sac pawns in the middlegame (e.g for open files against the enemy king) and play sharp lines instead where piece play is an important factor.

Like others have said, you eventually get to the point where gambits just start failing to bring home a point.

e.g. Vs. the Smith-Morra, your opponents will start using that Schevenigan (sp?) structure (pawns on d6, e6, a6) against it and obtain a good game

@Lavarook, Anand's gambit in the Open Catalan came on move five, and Topalov's gambit in the Gruenfeld was well within opening theory.  You are free to call these the middlegame if you prefer.  Carlsen won a King's Gambit recently, and most every player has tried the standard Ruy Lopez gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0!?  No matter how you slice it, gambits are alive and well right on up to the world champion level.

Also, in my Smith-Morra wins at correspondence, my opponents usually play the opening fairly well, but always seem to go wrong in the middlegame or endgame.  I certainly wouldn't want to claim that the Smith-Morra or Sicilian Wing gambits are 100% sound, but all I am saying is that it is possible to score wins with them against opponents rated over 2000 even at slow time controls.

@Riga

Imo, I don't consider the "dxc4" in the Catalan a gambit mainly b/c a 'legit' gambiteer wouldn't take up the Catalan- Its more like a long term pawn sacrifice for long term benefits e.g. Increased pressure on the h1-a8 diagonal, black will have hard time uncorking his light sq bishop...

Same goes for the Ruy Lopez: I wouldn't really call that a gambit either-Its just the main line of the Ruy and a 'legit' gambiteer wouldn't take up the Ruy either-much too positional for them.

And same for Grunfeld too (I don't know much about that line-I play the Rb1 pawn sac line though as white, which I don't consider a gambit)

I think your definition of a gambit and mine are just different thats all. To me, a gambit is something where you take a risk with the pawn sacrifice-not quite sure how your opponent will react. e.g. Smith Morra, King's Gambit, Evans Gambit,...

@Lavarook, in my view, players like Kasparov, Shirov or Morozevich are the archetypal gambiteers.  They may play long term sacrifices for long term benefits, but they are not afraid to throw a pawn or two into the fire in order to get more materialistic opponents off balance.  They occasionally play old-style gambits like Morozevich's King's Gambit or Kasparov's flirtation with the Evans Gambit, but they are much more likely to play contemporary gambits like the Open Catalan or Semi-Slav Botvinnik.  The main battleground of gambits has shifted to change with the times, and this is as it should be.

It is quite true that the Ruy Lopez gambit is very strong, so strong that almost all players decline.  Strong gambits win games, and in my view, that's why improving players should play them.

@LavaRook, you don't consider the Rb1 pawn sac Grunfeld to be a gambit?

Just what do you consider it?

Exactly! The only problem is that a lot of gambits seen at club level, such as the Latvian, Elephant, Englund and Blackmar-Diemar are far from being strong... Yet they still remain popular. I guess a good indicator of whether a gambit is worth playing or not is to see if any grandmasters (not necessarily top 20 players) play it. Usually these gambits are about strong, long term positional compensation and not about a cheap bag of tricks. You will see examples of this kind of compensation in openings such as the Catalan, Anti-Moscow Gambit, some lines of the Grunfeld, the Benko Gambit, the Najdorf and Winawer poisoned pawn varations, and especially the Marshall Attack. You won't see the same kind of positional pressure come out of the gambits the OP mentioned, those usually leave the gambiteer a pawn down for nothing with correct play from the defending side. The drawback to these good gambits is that there is a lot of theory, but most quality openings have a lot of theory so if you want to play the best lines then you cannot avoid it, whether you sac a pawn or not.

I've been warned by other players that some day I will regret offering the Smith-Morra so often against strong players, so I've already switched to playing other lines, but I must say I haven't really had any problems with it against players up to around 2000, and I have had troubles playing against it as black.  In one of the vote chess groups I play for, we've scored a couple of miniatures lately with the Sicilian Wing Gambit against strongish opposition, so again if there is a refutation it isn't obvious.  I am not really so keen on the Latvian or Elephant Gambits because even when I've won I was very much aware of where my opponents could have improved their play.

Even unsoundish gambits can work as surprise weapons, especially when the refutations given by standard sources are flawed.  As with all openings, if you know the theory better than your opponent, you have an advantage, even if the opening does ultimately prove to be unsound.

The reason I don't consider the Grunfeld Rb1 a gambit is b/c it doesn't quite have the risk factor that a gambit like the KG entails. In the Rb1 Grunfeld line, white isn't really in a rush to get back the pawn and often he usually ends up bagging the black e-pawn or the b-pawn eventually. I think of it more as a pawn sacrifice, not quite a gambit b/c of the missing risk factor (not to mention the missing 'gambit' in the name of the opening :P but I guess thats besides the point).

BUT now that I think about it, I guess you could call these 'modern gambits' where its about the long term compensation like BigTy said.

for sure greater positional understanding beats coffee house tactics

having said that i play the morra and would argue it can help with strategy as well as the tactics

>:)

I think a gambit is a sacrifice of material during the opening phase of the game.  A gambit needn't necessarily be risky.  The Marshall Gambit in the Ruy Lopez or the Benko Gambit are rock solid, but still gambits.  In cases like the Queen's Gambit or the Reti Gambit where the gambiteer can recover the material on the next move, we might want to call them sham gambits, pace Spielmann's sham sacrifices.

I think you're mostly missing the point the GM was trying to make. This isn't about Gambit vs non-Gambit nor is it a question of whether those openings are sound or not. Gambits are fine and those openings are sound at the class level. 

This is primarily a warning against players basing too much of their game on surprising or confusing their opponents in the opening. If you are always trying to gain an edge by playing unusual openings and attempting to trap opponents who aren't versed in them, then that will almost certainly hinder your long-term development as a player. 

 I was loaned this book from a friend, do you recommend?

I started tourney chess in 1973 and my first otb rating was in the 1300s. I noticed as I progressed through the classes that questionable opening gambits became less and less frequent as my strength ( and the strength of my opponents grew ) . The cold hard truth of the matter is that what works at B class and below will NOT work above 2000 .  If you continue to increase your strength and move up the ratings ladder most people will find that adjustments in their openings , and in their approach to chess will become necessary in order to advance further. I think most chess players are attracted to gambits at some point or another, they are fun to play and when you do win with them the win is often short and sweet and you tend to forget the many painful losses with the same opening. I agree with the GM that " building your opening repertoire " around such questionable gambits isnt a good idea IF your goal in chess is to become as strong a chess player as possible. We dont all have the same goals in chess and if your goal is just to have fun and you really like such openings then by all means, keep playing them.