Your thoughts about Rousseau Gambit?

Hi chess enthusiasts,

what do you think about the Rousseau gambit? Thank you! 

Thank you for the comment. As usual when I play as white I find that I play it quite often. Didn't hear a lot from the youtubers about this gambit tho. I will try and master it!

I want to play it soooo bad,, but it's a move order nightmare, and requires and entire repertoire to play coming off the scandinavian. I hate the toothless scandinavian with every fiber of my being now that's i've found the THRILLING hartlaub/charlick against 1.d4, but see it less than 1:10 games as black

provided white doesnt fall for exf5 or bxg8?!, white is just WAY better. the placement of the bishop on c4 is very annoying for black and either 4.d4 or 4.d3 keeps substantial advantage . The best thing that can be said about it is that unlike worse gambits, it may not have a direct refutation. but 1.3+ is pretty darn close

subjectively, it's perfect for some people's style & repertoire. as a lover of semi-open f files, it ties in with my king's gambit, gedult BDG scandinavia, alapin diemer french & mieses gambit repertoire. it doesn't allow 2.e5 like most openings including the toothless marshall scandinavian, and it has awesome OTB results at the amateur level. some haters just aren't good enough attackers to live off tactical morsels and live in safe little pawn shelters crocheting toilet doilies.

it's perfect for my needs. gambits where I can test my tactical prowess against an opponent's positional correctness. I tend to really kick other gambiteer butts accepting gambits eg, I'm better than black in the falkbeer counter gambit which favors black on average OTB, and I haven't even studied it. double edged is double edged

Just finished my basic rousseau book and will finish luccini next. Then I need to do reverse falkbeer and one last line and then finish my jaenish schliemann theory and I plan to drill it all, one linecat a time until I really know my theory and start destroying black. It's sick how almost every line has huge winning stats. Luccini will be a bit harder, but I'm just tired of tacticless scandinavian.

The Scandinavian is not toothless. it just slows down into a CaroKann in the middle game after the dynamics of the opening. i like pawn shelters and hot black coffee.

I don't push the c pawn except in the scandinavian gambit which annoying sites now call "pavnov transfer" even if it doesn't transpose until a couple more moves.

I STILL despise having to play the sicilian advance variation soooo effing much! ANY opening that allows an opponent to prevent you from playing Nf3/Nf6 sucks doodoo out of a dead skunk's butt that was pulled out of another dead skunk's butt as far as I'm concerned. that's why I'm studying rousseau/luccini/jaenish-schlieman/calabrese etc. stopping the e pawn and pushing the f pawn king's gambit style is way more my style even if there's a ton of theory I need to learn to stop playing the marshall variation. I love kicking scan butt with the gedult BDG though and punishing BDGs & tennisons from the black side is about all i enjoy in it

finally finished the main line chapter... THAT's my idea of carnage. It's not familiar like trusty old king's gambit, but it does have lines that exploit the semi-open f file. so far, despite the HUGE amount of theory I'll need to cover EVERYTHING, I'm liking that I keep seeing themes repeat in other ...f5 lines like the luccini and jaenish/schlieman like the e5/d6/c7 pawn chain or bishop to d6 and pushing e4 to kick Nf3 back where it came from.

I'm learning a whole new tactical/positional tool kit even if wrecking 0-0 chances makes me cringe.

the thing with the scandinavian is there isn't a single line where I can attack f2 before castling and there aren't any plans involving targets. it's too wait and see and positional for my style and if i WANTED to play carokann or sicilian, I'd play those.

there's just sooo much work getting my theory ready. I spent all day mostly proofreading and fixing errors or bad line choices. it's nice to see too that the stats are pretty much locked. I've seen a bunch of lines that had maybe 1,000 games from when I started making my book that are pretty much the same at 17k today and that a lot of lines are actually improving as players learn them I guess.

I gave up trying to study it because spaced repetition does nothing but confuse me on move orders so I'm going to learn my theory "the hard way" drilling it one line at a time like I did when I had a 90% stat in the smith morra. (there's a theoretical monster!) it drives me nuts that the trainer I use uses spaced repetition (total random!) and when I try to do systematic, it skips moves up to the branch you're on where I need to play from move #1 and not be "how the heck did i get here?" confused like i was the first time i tried to learn this. i'm hoping I can be ready to start playing 1...e5 before the month's over. i don't want to feel my way through it. I want to be ready.

combining theory to bypass my positional weakness in a system that gives me tactical opportunities is what makes me happy. golly I miss my former 90%+ win rate and +250 smith morra rating. i'm doing fine with it now, but nowhere near 90%+.

maybe when I reach the limits of my reverse king's gambit repertoire, I'll try 2 knights and fritz as I originally planned before learning about the rousseau. i'm never going back to latvia though

4.d3 leads to the luccini gambit which is a bit better for white, but still very dangerous with many of the same Ideas... that's the next line I need to complete

4.d4! is considered best and is essentially a reversed falkbeer counter gambit (falkbeer counter counter gambit? LOL) if black knows his theory though, he can get an advantage in that too in most lines

mind is numb doing luccini theory. I think there's improvements in the rousseau theory I fixed today too

UPDATE: OMG is the luccini gambit a mess! it favors white a bit in many lines and it's a theoretical black hole! I've been QUICKLY following lines with a tree editor for a couple HOURS in already started theory, and see a ton of lines I haven't touched yet going as far back to move 5s! it's looking like the theory might be twice as long as the rousseau!

if there's a downside to the rousseau, it's that 4.d3 is almost as common as the accepted main line, but less rewarding and way more complicated. I was hoping to be on to scotch or reversed falkbeer theory by now. THIS is the price one must pay apparently to play the rousseau, and playing 4...Nf6 and staying with the rousseau vs the 4...Bc5 lucchini doesn't have ANY promising continuations like the 2nd & 3rd lines of the luccini.

i want to beat the scandivian defense to death and take a dump on it! it's like a nightmare that one can't wake up from

elephant gambit allows white to develop 2 knights to nothing for black.

i don't like ANYTHING that allows 2.e5! it's looking as though I'll just have to accept a miserable game against 4.d3 to have fun with the accepted line. too much theory to remember with low prospects.

*sigh*

there are no free meals

White can just decline and get good position

In MANY 4.d3 lines with an ANNOYING closed center.

If gambits are such trash, and position rules, why do french players decline pretty much EVERY gambit you try to throw at them?

UPDATE: up to 702 lines and am STILL in the luccini gambit! OMG I still have the reverse falkbeer and 2 other 4th move alternatives, and I haven't even STARTED 3.Bb5 theory yet. I'm beginning to think memorizing all this theory isn't possible and I'll have to stick with the main lines only if I ever want to start playing this ...f5 repertoire

playing black is MISERABLE for gambiteers! thank the stars at least for the blackburn hartlaub! MAYBE I can get by on figuring stuff out like I do all the other gambits I play and am overthinking this, but there's more theory for just 4.exf5 and 4.d3 than the theoretical black hole smith morra gambit, which I do very well in. I'm guessing that 4.d3 is very positional and will be one of those lines I'm way below average in like facing the pirc, modern and owens

there was one line I wanted to follow for its great stats, but has a +5.3 evaluation. I honestly think real humans don't see whatever weird little kink stalefish does in such lines.