Around 1700 rating, I face a lot of king’s gambit opening (1.e4 e5 2.f4). I haven’t set time to study this opening, so when I face it, I just wing it, without really understand its goal and so I found myself many times with a lack of space and underdeveloped, struggling to find counterplay.
Game
Master’s games top response to 3.Nf3 from chess.com
and from Wikipedia: Joe Gallagher writes that 3.Nf3 Nc6 “has never really caught on, probably because it does nothing to address Black’s immediate problems.”
Points to take 1. Better understanding and a new response to king’s gambit is required. (This post helped me with that) 2. Make exchanges wisely, piece activity and positional aspects are sometimes more important then winning an exchange.
Opening 1. According to chess.com analysis, instead of 6. ..b6 should be Bd6. My assumption is that it advance a piece and prepare faster castle. If 7.Ne5 Qc7. Open question here, who needs dark squares bishop more here, black or white? 2. 11..f5 is ok, but h6 is better, probably since it doesn’t harm pawn structure around the king. Position after 11 is favours white. Pawn structure is about the same but in space and pieces activity, white has an advantage. Also black king has castled, but in a risky place, where either pawn storm or white minor pieces can easily strike.
Middle game 1. 15..Bxe5 is not good, since it activates the knight further. A better tactics would be 15..Ng4 and force bishop trade on better conditions. 2. 17..Nd4?? blunder 🙁 The original idea was to cut the connection between queen and bishop, but even if 17. Re1 for example, the pawn on e5 can be easily pinned, so nothing good can come out of this. I took 20 seconds for this move and didn’t notice the pin.
General On early stages, white controls strong diagonal and has more space on king side. In such cases, when Queen on c2 and there are many white pieces on king side, maybe castling long is preferred.
Points to take 1. Better accuracy in the opening. 2. Improve piece activity 3. Adjust castling side to the action 4. Stop blunder pieces
