King’s Gambit

You would think I would say, "It's bunkum?"  You apparently don't read my posts: I seldom do so without checking the claims out first.

According to the Opening Explorer, Black wins more master games than White, 43% vs 38% after 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4.  But after 3 Nf3 g5, it's now only a 1% advantage: 44% Black wins vs 43% White wins, while if Black plays 3...d6 (Bobby Fischer's recommendation in his famous article "The King's Gambit is Busted") the Black advantage rises to 50% vs 35%.  After 3...g5 there are several White variations where White wins more than Black.  Consequently, the databases show Black has more trouble if he plays moves that don't give the pawn back.

Black is not obliged to play Be7-h4+

Kings Gambit is an inferiour chess opening for White and is not played at top level chess, just in rapid tournaments of grandmasters where they can't lose Elo rating points.

Example: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 Nf6 6.d4 d6 7.Nd3 Nxe4 8.Qe2 Qe7 9.Bxf Nc6 and Black is better.

Why playing an inferiour opening as White when I can play a better opening where I have a tiny edge like the Ruy Lopez? No grandmaster would play this in a world championship. Just ridiculous!

Firstly, about the King's gambit in general - I am not Nakamura, and not Ivanchuk, and not Carlsen - but look - the three above mentioned super GMs play 2.f4, although not that often, but they do play 2.f4, and not only they (I mean the players above 2700+) - ask them, why they play King's gambit  Obviously because this opening is quite playable, even at the GMs' level.

Secondly, as for 4.Qe2 in the Fischer defense, - I do not assure that the queen move 4.Qe2 is better or worse than, say, the more popular 4.Bc4 or the main move 4.d4. I just want to say that as for the key position in the main line after 4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng1 Bh6 (6. ... Qf6 is of almost the same strength as 6. ... Bh6, and it may simply come to the same positions with different move order) - I prefer to play it as Black, not as White - that's just my personal impression, especially after having worked on that variation with Komodo 10 and Stockfish 8 (but even without help of strong chess engines, it had been quite clear to me that Black's position was more pleasant than White's in that line). I do not say that White loses after 6.Ng1 Bh6 - but it costs really much efforts for White to maintain more or less equilibrium, but of course tastes differ. Besides the 4.d4, 4.Bc4 and 4.Qe2, White also has a number of playable ways, for example 4.Nc3, 4.d3, or 4.b3.

The matter is that I not so seldom play the Pirc defense (1.e4 d6) as Black, and after 1.e4 d6, when my opponents (sometimes) play 2.f4, I am happy to respond with 2. ... e5, and in 9 of 10 games in this case the Fischer defense of the King's gambit arises. In other words, the Fischer defense is my main weapon as Black against the King's gambit, although I myself am very fond of playing the King's gambit as White. As for 4.Qe2, this is less studied, but really interesting to elaborate and to play as White. Just saying - in several blitz games, after 4.Qe2 g5 5.Qb5+ ... 6.Qxg5, - for very unclear reasons, Black resigned at once 

But of course, the idea of 4.Qe2 is not to eat up the pawn on g5 after the automatic 4. ... g5 

I played the Fischer line with d6 sometimes but against me there never go for Ng1 back but they Always sac there knight on f3 with Bc4 and 0-0 if that is good I doubt.

So I mean like this..