Go back
Halloween Gambit Fun!!!

Halloween Gambit Fun!!!

Only Chess

Vote Up
Vote Down

I experimented with the Halloween Gambit in blitz on ICC. It's surprisingly good considering White trades a knight for a pawn. Here is an awesome position I had by move 16:

Black to move.

Can you find the forced mate? This one shouldn't be hard.

What this position shows is first of all, poor play and second of all: the power of the opening. Black retreated his knights to b8 and g8. After that, he desperately tried to uncork his position. Meanwhile, White developed naturally and had his army ready for action.

Vote Up
Vote Down

Black should lower his flag.

1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Hehe, yeah. Here was the full game:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6
6. d5 Nb8 7. e5 Ng8 8. d6 cxd6 9. exd6 Qa5 10. Bf4 Qb4
11. Qd2 a6 12. O-O-O g6 13. Qe3+ Kd8 14. Nd5 Qa5 15. Bc4 b5
16. Rhe1 Qxe1 17. Rxe1 1-0

Vote Up
Vote Down

Is it usually winning. 4. Ngxe5?

Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by DeepThought
Game 1338113, Game 1412828, Game 1382969.
Wow interesting games, Deepthought.
Sheesh i don't think i'd have the guts too sac my knight for just one pawn. Unless I saw some winning forced combo. or something. I am not crazy about sacing even a pawn, to tell the truth. Probably why i never play gambits.

The last one is actually losing for white, though; Game 1382969

Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Orange Peel
Is it usually winning. 4. Ngxe5?
It's great if your opponent doesn't know how to reply to it. If xe does, you may be in trouble. And in correspondence chess, there's a good chance that xe will either look it up or think it through well enough to find a good reply even if xe hasn't played it before (I won my first and so far only game with black against the Halloween even though I had no idea what had hit me and didn't use a database). Still, I have used it successfully a few times here, and it's a lot of fun.

Vote Up
Vote Down

Should match up fritz vs fritz.