A secret windmill in the king's gambit

The king's gambit accepted is considered one of the most exciting and adventurous openings in chess.

Many chessplayers don't like to play the king's gambit because it's also a risky and unstable opening. For instance, when white doesn't play it correctly, he finds himself struggeling in the middle game while his king is under attack, cannot castle and the entire position is open - a very difficult situation for white.

However, there are players who can play the king's gambit correctly, and have enough courage to try new variation in this crazy opening. I am one of them. Today I crushed my opponent with a lovely tactic. My opponent could have resigned after move 11, but he continued to play and eventually resigned at move 20.

I'd like to share this beautiful tactic - a secret windmill which does the following things:

1) Gains a rook, a pawn and a bishop

2) Destroys the king side of your opponent

3) Force the enemy king to move and lose his castle right

4) Prevent the a8-rook from moving for the rest of the game

Take a look at this windmill:

You can try this trick in your future games. Enjoy! 

can't help but play 4...g4!? Either way 4...f6? is a blunder.

I can't wait to use this trick. Thank you soooooooo much.

You're welcome 

I regularly beat opponents the King's gambit accepted (playing black of course) in under 25 moves...

It's true, though, that sometimes I misstep and lose in a comparable number of moves...

A pretty tactic, indeed. I bet it was fun to play!

...f6 seems suspicious, though - the more usual move being ...g4 in that variation...

And on move 6, he HAD to play ...Nf6 - then with ...Bg7 and ...d6 in whatever order, it would be wild - and any result could be reached. 

You should say that he could resign on move 7, not 11... 

טקטיקה יפה! אהבתי :-)

The move 4...g4!? is more common than 4...f6? (I think it's the main line). 4...g4!? leads to sharpe variations that might be dangerous for black. I know a nice trick in which the white player sacrifice his rook and eventually wins the opponent's queen.

(This is why I like to play the move 5.Ne5 instead of the boring move 5.Ng5 in the 4...g4!? variation

7..Kd8 is where he went wrong. I may be wrong but I would have gladly traded -- blocking the check with the queen was best imo. Becasue trading queens isn't in white's interest; it loses the knight and takes away white's fire.

That's not true. There's not blocking the check. The blunder was f6 so h6 was forced.

There is no queen trade. If he doesn't play 7...Kd8 it's mate in two. 

I was looking at the position after 13.Nxe7 for a few minutes. As a matter of fact I think that white's position is much better because:

1) White can castle queen side in his next move, after Nc3, while the black king is stuck in the middle of the 8th rank for the rest of the game. The fact that the black king will be stuck in the middle of an open position is very dangerous for black.

2) The black knight on h1 is so far away from the centre and it'd take many turns to get it back to the game... So black is actually a piece down in terms of positional chess.

3) Black has got 3 isolated weak pawns on d8, f8, h8. They may become easy targets for the white rooks later. Black's pawn structure is totally shuttered.

I think f6 and Qe7 are both bad for black

תודה רבה! כששחקן ברמה שלך אומר לי את זה, זה מרגיש נהדר

I play the king's gambit too, but after 6.Ne5 Nf6 is totally equal. When I get 4. ... f6 the best answer is Nxg5. This is the winning move not the hxg5. Engines says it too. 

Dear <Matancs>

I write again in English :-)

I'm not so sure actually, in the discussion between you and <Axerofquestions>, who is right about that position... 

Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle...

The thing is that black's next move is 13...Bxe7, and suddenly there are issues with the h4 square. If indeed you now go 14. Nc3, as you propose, than after 14...Bxh4+ (which means that also YOU don't get to castle today...), the knight on h1 gets right back into the game - through either g3 or f2, and you're suddenly in serious trouble. Black has very real counterplay and a material advantage - and I still don't see the great attack on his king... I feel that you don't have enough material to make it happen, and you'll lose as black's pieces will gain coordination. 

I was looking at another line (of course it may not be the best) - which is 13. Nxe7 Bxe7 14. Qg4 (to defend h4) d6 (so the queen can't just to to h3 and pick up the knight) 15. Qf4 (it still keeps an eye on h4, g3 and f2, mind you) Rg8 (black has enough pieces to manage to get the knight out safely - meanwhile you are still undeveloped) 16. Qxf7 (of course you can still eat some pawns in the meantime...) Rf8 (and yes THANK YOU for that new open file) 17. Qxh7 (no problem my friend - you can have another one on me) Nf2 (the knight is finally out and black will coordinate)

Now - I don't know how to evaluate the resulting position (of course, my Stockfish would do it in milliseconds - but the point (for me) is developing my own judgment, not being lazy and firing the engine...) - white did get a couple of extra pawns, and that h-pawn could mean some danger. 

Both sides were so busy munching away, that no player can really, hand to heart, claim to be developed...

So maybe we've struck a rough balance - white will use black's king exposure and h-pawn, black will coordinate pieces and try dominating the board and restricting the queen...

If I had to guess - I would still say that black is slightly better and would definitely take black in the position after white's 13th move...

EDIT: And now wait - there's an improvement - how about 17...Ng3 instead, and after 18. Be2 (you now see who's undeveloped, has a really exposed king and has to defend...) and Bf5, there's really no question who is better. White would be lucky to survive!

Four minor pieces are much more powerful than a queen. The other knight is coming to c6, the king can repose (for now) on c7, the rooks (of which black has one extra!) are entering the fray... and it's always a pleasure to defeat a queen through coordinated play - see my next post :-)

For example (here), 17...Ng3 18. Be2 Bf5 19. Qg7 Nxe2 20. Kxe2 Nc6 and black's sufferings are only starting... :-) !!!!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Of course, there are easily trillions of possible four-move-sequences after 13...Bxh4 - I was looking at just one which seems to me (at the time of writing) to be the best. Maybe white's play can be significantly improved upon - but that line shows you what can easily happen to him... I believe that it's white who is in danger in this position. 

How minor pieces drive rings around the enemy queen - case one (from the league games here in Belgium, late 2014)

How minor pieces (and alpha rooks) dominate queens and kings which just got to the wrong place at the wrong time - case 2 (from an international tournament in France, early 2014)

So as you see - you're talking to an expert on giving away queens and going to party!

Of course you need to be quite careful at keeping the lady (the enemy queen) under strict control... as if she gets out - all hell can break loose... and there are enough examples of that happening too (see a recent 25/10 game between myself and CP6033 to see how I lost horribly in such a situation... oh yes - life is indeed fraught with dangers!!!).

Dear Solskytz,

Thanks a lot for your wonderful analysis! I have read the analysis several times and I also checked the position with my chess engine (Shredder Classic 4) and now I figure out that I was wrong. After 13.Nxe7 there are more variations that are better for black. I didn't see the weakness on h4. The possibility of attacking h4 really changes the picture.

Today I tested this position with Shredder Classic 4. I created a simulation of a chess game which starts from this position. I put Shredder on full power (~2650) and told it to play against itself. Black won the game (I'll try to export the pgn file from Shredder to chess.com and to post the full game in here. It's fun to watch).

Writing a new post with your analysis is a good idea. It deserves a topic of its own, so many more players on chess.com would learn from it. Can't wait for the post to be published :-)

Indeed - the posssibility of attacking h4, salvaging the knight (!) and coordinating matters a lot in this position. 

Check out my profile - there are many posts with games and analyses, and many people are already reading and enjoying them :-) 

I don't think that I will make this into a new thread - this is your thread, I'm just a guest :-)