This game highlights a giant flaw of the King's Gambit declined: Bc5 eventually loses time, as Black cannot prevent White playing d4 with tempo.

Lawrence Day vs J Costa, 1992

Alekhine vs O Tenner, 1911

According to MacDonald: "Now according to Alekhine his game with Tenner COlogne 1907 continued w/ 10...Ne5? and white won brilliantly with 11 Nxe5! Bxd1 12 Bxf7+ Ke7 13 Bxc5+ Kf6 14 00+ Kxe5 15 Rf5 mate.....However according to Tenner this was all a fabrication by ALkehine. The gamea ctually continued with 10..Qe7! 11 Bb5 f5!...and a draw was agreed. Also the game was played in 1911 not 1907."

For example, consider a game that goes like this: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nc3

Now no player in their right mind would play 4...Bc5 here, because White would of course respond 5.d4 (a move he wants to play anyhow) and then the bishop would be forced to move again.

I would think a move is either viable or it isnt. If it's not viable, it's bad.

Refutor, agrees that its bad and/or has serious drawbacks, but he plays it anyway. Refutor obviously has a wild side.

THen Refutor says you shouldn't play it unless you take w/ the f pawn on the second move.

BUt then he says it's all a matter of taste anyways.

Okay here is Sneaky's example: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Bc5?! 5 d4

Does the B really have to move again? 5...Nxd4 6 Nxd4 Qh4+

There's the critical line, if this is viable then the move is viable. I guess.

When I said it's not "bad" I mean to say it doesn't lose by force--it doesn't deserve a "?" or even a "?!"

The only other thing to add there is that you can't be too dogmatic about anything in chess. The minute you say you can't do "x, y and Z" someone will show you a game where they did exactly that. So it all depends, I suppose.

Sneaky says not to play the Kings Gambit declined! But Sneaky isn't that Bobby Fischer's recommendation? SUrely you are not going to disagree w/ your idol on this most important of all openings?

RE the piece sack. First of all it is hardly a sack of an entire piece. By drunken count (iso pawns = zero), black is only down by 1 pt of material.

Does he gain anything else for his 1 pt? Yes. white has lost the right to castle as well.

SO black is down 1 pt. but he has a positional advantage in return for that pt. Overall it hardly seems like a disadvantage at all, more like an even swap or better. I mean how often can you drop a pawn and immediately get back a positional advantage for it?

The other thing is that if I am white and my K goes to e2 it is usually bad. In the Cunningham variation the K goes to f1 and he seems to be okay. but at e2 he blocks the B.

So what do you think next Sneaky? 7...d4 or 7...b6

Re: the piece-sac, like I said it's not clear to me. I understand that Black has compensation for the piece, that is not in question. The question is: is it enough? If white can consolidate and swap queens, the fact that he moved his king to e2 will be an advantage and not a problem. If I could tell you with certainty who is winning that position, I'd have a title--but my gut hunch tells me that I could win with White in a postal game. OTB, anything might happen.

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An interesting thing to note about the first key 'turning point' of this game is that 4...exf4 may not actually be that bad, or at least that 5.d4 is not recommended since allows the piece sac mentioned by <drunkenknight> (by way of transposition - 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Bc5?! 5. d4 Nxd4 6. Nxd4 Qh4+!) way back in '02!

I have spent some time analysing the positions which arise after 7.Ke2 and after the critical 7...d5!, where Black now threatens Bg4+, White has got the incredibly unlikely (only) defence 8.Nxd5! The position is shown below:

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Now after 8...Bg4+ White has got 9.Nf3 and where, in other positions that I studied, 9...Bxf3 10.gxf3 Qf2+ would have been deadly due to the threat of O-O-O with a crushing attack, here the d-file is blocked by the knight and so White can safely play 11.Kd3. Stockfish thinks that the best Black has got here is simply a draw by repetition with Qd4+, Qf2+ Qd4+ etc. etc., since White now also threatens Nxc7+ with a fork on the king and rook, but at any rate this hopefully shows that 5.d4 is not necessarily as good for White as was previously thought.

To illustrate what I mean by how critical it is for White to blockade the d-file with the knight, let us return to the position above and examine another plausible, but incorrect defence 8.Nf3, where White tries to pre-empt Bg4+ by blocking the diagonal with the knight directly. Here 8...Qf2+ really _is_ as crushing as it looks, after 9.Kd3 dxe4+ 10.Nxe4 Bf5! 11.Qe2 Qxe2!? 12.Bxe2 Nf6! 13.Nd2 Bxe4+ 14.Nxe4 O-O-O! 15.Kc3 Nxe4+ and we arrive at the following position:

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