Hi All.

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

--
D.P.

Dmitri wrote:
What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

Qe2 looks dodgy but not disastrous: don't fall into the trap of
believing that this one poor move lost you the game or that Black's
3... Be7 won it.

I would guess that you're playing this opening (the king's gambit)
without knowing what it's supposed to achieve. The idea is that White
gives up his f-pawn in order to make an attack down the f-file at
Black's king. So, Qe2 looks poor for two reasons: it doesn't help
with the opening's plan and it blocks in your king's bishop. The
setup you should be aiming for is something like Bc4 (attacking f7),
O-O (making the king safer and putting the rook on the f-file) and
d3/d4 with a discovered attack on Black's pawn. Marshal your forces
and attack Black's king!

Now, bearing in mind the general ideas of this opening, play against
3... Be7 shouldn't be much different than play against any other
plausible move by Black. I think the point of Be7 is that it stops
you playing Ng5 later on.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Old-Fashioned Smokes (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a pack of cigarettes but it's perfect
for your grandparents!

Dmitri wrote:
What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

What does Qe2 accomplish? The King's Gambit is all about attacking f7.
Bc4 is much more logical. Besides, the King's Gambit is a pretty
complicated theory heavy opening. If you want to play this you should
study some lines.

Claus-Juergen

David Richerby wrote:
Dmitri wrote:

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.


Qe2 looks dodgy but not disastrous: don't fall into the trap of
believing that this one poor move lost you the game or that Black's
3... Be7 won it.

That is true now that I look at it, but at that point during a game
I panicked and things went downhill after that.

I would guess that you're playing this opening (the king's gambit)
without knowing what it's supposed to achieve. The idea is that White
gives up his f-pawn in order to make an attack down the f-file at
Black's king. So, Qe2 looks poor for two reasons: it doesn't help
with the opening's plan and it blocks in your king's bishop. The
setup you should be aiming for is something like Bc4 (attacking f7),
O-O (making the king safer and putting the rook on the f-file) and
d3/d4 with a discovered attack on Black's pawn. Marshal your forces
and attack Black's king!

I understand generic idea of attacking on the f-file. For which normally
I would need to do O-O. But I understood that Be7 move is with intent to
play Bh4+ ( which is what he played ), which would eventually lead to me
moving my king, which in turn would block other figures and prevent O-O.
So how do you counter Bh4+ threat hopefully without dismantling pawns on
the king side? One idea would be to play h4 although it does dismantle
pawns on king side and makes O-O somewhat questionable.


Now, bearing in mind the general ideas of this opening, play against
3... Be7 shouldn't be much different than play against any other
plausible move by Black. I think the point of Be7 is that it stops
you playing Ng5 later on.

What about Bh4+?

--
Dmitri

According to Wiki, that is the Cuttingham defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_gambit

If you do a websearch, it looks like chesscafe has some text about
Cuttingham. Otherwise, you will have to find a book on the Kings
Gambit.

Gambits are fun. My favorite was the Evans Gambit. But I only played
them against people that were lower rated than I was.

In article , Dmitri
wrote:

What about Bh4+?

If you look at a lot of King's Gambit games, you'll notice that these
checks are a lot less of a problem than you'd think. Don't panic.

-Ron

Dmitri wrote:
Hi All.

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

3...Be7 is an old book line, known as the Cunningham Gambit, named
for the Scottish historian Alexander Cunningham (1654-1737), though the
line is known as far back as Greco in the early 1600s.
I know next to nothing about it, but I'm sure you can find something
in any decent openings encyclopedia. "Nunn's Chess Openings" gives the
main line as 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 Ng4 6.d4 d5 7.Bb3 Ne3 8.Bxe3 fxe3 9.0-0 Be6
10.Qd3 c6 11.Qxe3 with slight advantage to White.

I have a database of over 1,034,000 games, where both Black & White are
rated at least 2000.
There are only 143 games in which Black played 3....Be7
In the line Dmitri gives, there are two games where Black played 5....Nh5
instead of Ng4

Furhoff 2295 v. Fridh 2235; 1991 Black won in 44 moves.

Asanov 2400 v. Malaniuk 2510; 1991 draw after 56 moves.

In the line 5....Ng4, there are 46 games. Black wins 18, & draws 17.
In the 143 games with the line 3........Be7.........White wins 51 Black wins
48 and the rest are draws.

It appears to be one of the least complicated setups for Black that gives
him an above avg score...........That is, when both players are rated at
least 2000.

Ken
wrote in message
oups.com...

Dmitri wrote:
Hi All.

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

3...Be7 is an old book line, known as the Cunningham Gambit, named
for the Scottish historian Alexander Cunningham (1654-1737), though the
line is known as far back as Greco in the early 1600s.
I know next to nothing about it, but I'm sure you can find something
in any decent openings encyclopedia. "Nunn's Chess Openings" gives the
main line as 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 Ng4 6.d4 d5 7.Bb3 Ne3 8.Bxe3 fxe3 9.0-0 Be6
10.Qd3 c6 11.Qxe3 with slight advantage to White.

When pertaining to players who are rated at least 2000, White scores below
average (49%) playing the King's Gambit, however, 4.Bc4 is White's best
chance against 3...Be7, but still below average.
This is referring to when the gambit is accepted.
When Black plays 3....g5, Black scores 51%, meaning White does worse against
that than 3...Be7, however, Be7 is a less complicated line.

When using my complete database, which contains over 1.8 million games,
White scores averagely when Black accepts the gambit and Black scores
averagely when he plays 3....g5.
When Black plays 3....Be7, however, he scores above average.
There are 440 games where Black plays 3....Be7, and Black scores 49%,
compared to 48% playing 3....g5.

White's best response to 3....Be7 is 4.d4, where White scores 61%, however,
Black reduces that to 50% by playing either 4....d5 or 4...g5.
4....Bh4+ scores 46% for Black. 5.Ke2 d6 6.Bxf4 and it's 50/50.

"Dmitri" wrote in message
...
Hi All.

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

--
D.P.

You'll find he
http://www.chess-lovers.org/scid/c35.html
an opening analysis of the cunningham defense based on chesslib.no games
database.

Joseph Gallagher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gallagher
is a specialist of the king gambit, and got excellent results against
players using the Cunningham defense. He played it 19 times from 1985 to
2001 and scored 68%.
Mark Hebden (another british GM) played it 7 times as black from 1985 to
2001, with a record of +4=3-0

James


Ken Lovering wrote :
When pertaining to players who are rated at least 2000, White scores below
average (49%) playing the King's Gambit, however, 4.Bc4 is White's best
chance against 3...Be7, but still below average.
This is referring to when the gambit is accepted.
When Black plays 3....g5, Black scores 51%, meaning White does worse against
that than 3...Be7, however, Be7 is a less complicated line.

When using my complete database, which contains over 1.8 million games,
White scores averagely when Black accepts the gambit and Black scores
averagely when he plays 3....g5.
When Black plays 3....Be7, however, he scores above average.
There are 440 games where Black plays 3....Be7, and Black scores 49%,
compared to 48% playing 3....g5.

White's best response to 3....Be7 is 4.d4, where White scores 61%, however,
Black reduces that to 50% by playing either 4....d5 or 4...g5.
4....Bh4+ scores 46% for Black. 5.Ke2 d6 6.Bxf4 and it's 50/50.

"Dmitri" wrote in message
...
Hi All.

What would be a proper replay on 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7
I played Qe2 with disastrous consequences.

--
D.P.