Win with the Halloween Gambit!!!

He made more mistakes. He gives his opponent the possibility to castle at moves 11-12-13. It is not a model game. Just interesting a world master played this opening and won because his opponent did not find the right moves in time.

I guess you get points for consistency? Why bother saying anything if you just want to repeat the same negative silliness.  Nobody is claiming this is the newest greatest opening ... it is what it is!  There is no gatekeeper metal-of-honor being handed out to you for trying to make sure we all stick with book. 

“ The right standpoint is to play for pleasure – and do not think that pleasure is proportional to skill. The greatest bunglers are constantly deriving the greatest pleasure from chess – they go into ecstasies of delight when their Knight forks a King and Queen.

Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies its peculiar charm. Intellectual productiveness is one of the greatest joys – if not the greatest one – of human existence. It is not everyone who can write a play, or build a bridge, or even make a good joke. But in chess everyone can, everyone must, be intellectually productive and so can share in this select delight. “

Siegbert Tarrasch, 1931

Computer programs have deleted all this pleasure. The only thing that seems to matter nowadays is the question if you played the best move or not. That move you have to play else people declare you incompetend. The plan that you found, created, behind the board is not important anymore, only what Stockfish analyzed, even if you don't understand why, even if you know Stockfish has no plans but brute force analyses – 20 plies deep, 30 plies, 40, far more than you can see – . This is no more creativity, this is copying, this is learning by heart.

In my youth I played sound openings, because I did not know better. But one day I discovered the German magazine Randspringer ( by Rainer Schlenker ). This was a whole new world to me with the most unorthodox openings and crazy gambits. Sure, the openings were unsound, but they were so funny to play because after a few moves no opponent knows any theory and they had to think themselves which resulted many times in mistakes or even blunders. 

Chess is just a game, I will never become a grandmaster, so why should I not play the way I like and have fun ? All I want is a board and a beer and an opponent who thinks “what the hell does this guy play ? This cannot be right, let us punish it by normal development moves”. 

“Chess like love, like music, has the power to make men happy” Tarrasch ( again ).

I got this from 1.e4 e5 book by Ntirlis. The gambit can be refuted but it's very tricky and hardly anyone at 1600s or below even study openings. He annotated a game which I think all you would like to have to study against the Halloween

EKAFC

The analysis you published is wrong. You have to read my analysis ( halloweengambit.jouwweb.be   Page 19 ).

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5 Nxe5 5.d4 Nc6?! 6.d5 Ne5 7.f4
Ng6 8.e5 Ng8 9.Qe2 !! Bb4 10.f5 N6e7 11. Bg5 ! and not 11.f6 ?

m'kay big guy ... you keep being you 

Thanks for the recommendation. He also mentioned your 7...b5 line against the Vienna after 3.Bc4. Since you mentioned not liking his Ponziani gambit, what do you recommend against the Ponziani?

I agree 100%. I don't see any point in playing a game unless it's enjoyable.

Plus, there are too many openings named after people and places. There should be more named after fun holidays. 

Damn, I always do that 3. ...Nxe4. And usually meet 4. Bxf7 + 

I think there's a Siesta variation in the RL, but it is unsound if I remember well.

Against 1. e4 e5  2. Nc3 Nf6  3. f4, 3. ...d5 is my choice.

After 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 I wonder what Black's best try is? Probably 80% of my opponents (including IMs and GMs) play 4...Bc5, but I usually get a very easy game there. The move that gives me the most trouble is probably 4...Na5.

4. ... Na5 in that position was one of the main reasons I gave up the Vienna, around 1990. I also thought it equalises too easily and more people were playing it. I started playing the Spanish and then switched to 1. c4. Then 1.Nf3, back to 1. e4 for a year, playing the Italian and the Moeller Attack and then 1. d4, for the past 28 years or so.

But there is already a knight on f6

Or maybe you mean ...f5 on move 3 instead, which looks interesting at first glance.

I do own Tait's book, but I mainly bought it for his analysis of the funky KGA lines with 3...h5, to add to my black repertoire

Bom jogo

no checkmate?