Kings Gambit, Muzio Gambit

I don't think the double Muzio is sound. What do you do against 9... Qf5?

http://www.millican.org/chess/muzio.pdf

Indeed. So much! Where does one begin!

@ SimonSeirup on the topic of ‘his’ suggestion 6…Qh4.

One plays 7.g3 and the Queen has to move again.

@oinquarki on his statement: The Muzio Gambit is very strong and gives white a slight advantage, the reason modern day masters don't play it is because black is scared of the muzio and won't play g4!

Why on earth would one play 4…g4?? When there are such alternatives as The Philidor Gambit with 4.Bc4 Bg7! 5.h4 h6 6.d4 d6 and the Hanstein gambit 4.Bc4 d6 5.d4 h6 6.0-0 Bg7. It has got nothing to do with fear and everything to do with practicality and actually wanting to try and win the game.

@Rigamagician on Raymond Keene v Helmut Pfleger Montilla 1974

This is often an often reproduced game and the final position has also been reproduced a number of times. The problem is the final repetition of queen moves does appear not only not to be forced, it may not be the best for Black. After 13.Qe2 Qe6 14.Qf2 Both  Chigorin and Znosko-Borovsky held that 14…Qg6! 15.Bxf4 Bxf4 is clearly better for Black. Hans Smout in Myers Opening Bulletin went one step further and suggested that 14.Nxe7 was better siting 14…Qxe7 15.Bc3! Rg8 16.Qh5! Qg5 17.Rf2 Qxh5! [The alternative 17...Ne7 presents white with an attack 18.Qxf7 Rf8 19.Qxh7 d5 20.Bb4 Re8 21.Rfe2 Bf8 22.Bxd5 Znosko-Borovsky ] 18.Bf6+ and draw. This analysis by Hans Smout is also often reproduced as well, I have even seen it reproduced by noted chess player Tim Harding of Ireland. The problem is that it has one flaw, 17…Qxh5 is not forced and Black has much better: 17. Rf2 Rf8! The game L. Schuler – F. Meiben 1999 continued 18.Qe2 d6 19.Bxf7 Ne5 20.Bd5 c6 21.Be4 Kc7

And finally

@ tmkroll What do you do against Steinitz’s 9…Qf5

(1) Investigate 10.Bxf4 Nf6 11.Qe2! As suggested by Roo of America.

(2) Sac the bishop a different way

Mr, Sarfati is a former New Zealand champion.

I guess there are practical chances in both lines, but both look very fishy. In the game Black is developing very badly and mostly playing in his own way. Maybe it's hard even for a strong player to find better moves over the board in such a wild position but neither of the suggested lines look close to sound for White. I may come back with more on this when I have the time.

Yes!

nakamura won with this

I think so. He get a brutal line of attack against the king and when he sacrifices his bishop on f7 the king is right on the battlefield.

I have what files I could get off the old Tomas Stock site on the Muzio before it disappeared (although I do beleive some of it is still available through archive.org). The thing that gets me though, just what is the fascination? I just can not see why people spend so much on a gambit that can be avoided and it can be avoided with a fair amount of advantage for the player of the black peices to boot. All this wondering if the Muzio is playable is rather moot considering the advatange that 4...Bg7 and 4...d6 offers..

It looks like after 10.Bxf4 Nf6 11.Qe2 in the double Muzio Black can begin to give back material ... 11... Qg4 12. Qxg4 (what else?) Nxg4 13. Be5+ Kg8 14. Bxh8 Bh6 and Black is close to winning. Whenever White sacs that much material it should be fairly easy to thwart the attack with a good counter-sacrifice. This line is coming to me from Houdini after only a few minutes. (I spent last night letting it look deeply at the Nc3 line.) Black doesn't even have to be this clever, though. Just about every Queen retreat and also Bg7 simply defending seem good enough. If a piece falls, it's not the end of the world as long as Black can untangle.

Obviously it's an engine and in positions with this kind of material imbalance it's not going to understand them perfectly, but I have a hard time believing it's so wrong these options could be good for White. The numbers it's spitting back in the Nc3 are all 2s and 3s in Black's favor. Black doesn't even have to take the Bishop, 7. Nc3 Bc5+ seems good for at least an edge.

The Muzio is more fun to play than the safer options and much more interesting. It's clearly not the safest route to an advantage for Black, but the fascination seems obvious to me. How often do you see such an early piece sacrifice result in a good, even, and playable position?

Stockfish says that this gambit is basically equal and is the best move in the position. Stockfish really doesn't like the kings gambit though but fyi its -0.4 and slightly better for black.

I made line 6. d4 in muzio gambit and think its very good for intermediate players

When you played 4. d3, was that a misclick? It's hard to imagine why would you play 4. d3 and 5. d4 otherwise.

Also, this isn't the Muzio gambit. In your game Black played Qe7 which changes everything.

I'd prefer to take the White pieces from the Muzio posted by the OP.You can't attack without pieces out, white has 2 pieces out vs an uncastled king, with a perforated pawn cover for black, I wouldn't think twice before playing as  white. Unsound gambit don't mean much; sound or not, if a gambit shakes up a player ,he is likely to fold up like a cheap card table. A lot of players have limited tolerance for chaos in their games.

@54, looks like a Muzio Gambit followed by a Jerome Gambit and black generously hanging a queen for white to have enough compensation to win. Entertaining to watch though. I would liken it to taking your oponent to Tal's forrest then trying to chop down all the trees whilst they are trying to get out.

Here's an opening trap that I came up on my own:

And any other king move leads to a crushing attack, according to stockfish

That is true. He made blunder.
But just after 4 days, I played another game today, can say a second version of "Double Muzio Gambit", Here oppnent king was forced to break its castling to capture my bishop on check. And again won this game easily as black resigned on 15th move without black blunder. So in short muzio is best and fun on top of King Gambit accepted.

[Sighs wistfully]

My heart wants the Muzio to work: I love the King's Gambit and have poured untold hours into trying to make the Muzio work (in the sense of "being a theoretically sound opening"). But, sadly, it doesn't seem to.

The Keene game at #6 gives the classic drawing line for Black against the classical Muzio, and in that line I think Korchnoi's idea of 14..., b5 is one White might still need to be wary of. But I've not encountered any computer-age analysis of that line.

In the "Wild Muzio" with 8. Bxf7+ Black's best line in defence seems to be...

The points behind not taking on d4 are:

1) The capture 9..., Qxd4+ accelerates White's development by allowing (pretty much forcing, actually) 10. Be3. Admittedly the Bishop isn't marvellous on e3 but it has released the Ra1 by moving and can now head onto the a1-h8 diagonal if needed. In effect, Black loses a tempo and White gains one,

2) The capture 9...., Qxd4 opens another file for the attacker; which is not good value for grabbing an extra pawn in this sort of messy position.

3) Black's Queen is well-placed on f5. It covers the h5 square preventing Qh5+ or Qd5+ ideas for the moment and is hard to shift. The Qf5 doesn't interfere with developing Black's Ng8 the way ..., Qxd4 followed by ..., Qf6 does, making it easier for Black to build a barrier against a heavy piece f-file attack than is the case after the pawn grab on d4.

A couple of fine articles on the Wild Muzio appeared back in the 1980s. The one by Sapi and Schneider doesn't seem to be available on the web and will still be in copyright, so you'd have to hunt up old paper copies of BCM for that one (1988 if I recall aright). The other one by Peter Millican is available on the author's own website at https://www.millican.org/chess/muzio.pdf Engines seem to tell us that Black can defend and come out on top with accurate play.

So; and this is likely a cue for someone better-informed than I am to breeze in and expose my ignorance; I'm going to assert that 9..., Qxd4 deserves a question mark and that any theoretical discussions of the Wild Muzio should really focus on 9..., Qf5!

But then, the Muzio was probably never really about soundness - it was about getting a wild position in which one's opponent has to find very strong defensive moves or get blown away. Maybe that's enough for those who love it - as shown in the White Win games in this thread, it can be a thing of fierce beauty. It's not quite enough for me though...apart from when I'm playing skittles games for giggles.

Ralph, the move e4 to e5 is waste in the game, and it slowed white progress