The Rousseau Gambit

I have been thinking about playing this opening in tournaments, should i play it or is it too unsound.

Against what level of opposition? Have you tried this out online in say 5 min pool or 15 min pool?

Lots of people play one line as white and another as black so you don't want people to know that you're a one trick pony 🙂

@gambiteerweirdo said
I have been thinking about playing this opening in tournaments, should i play it or is it too unsound.

I looked this up on Wikipedia and it has its own page [1]. The gambit goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bc4 f5?! giving the following starting position:


The Wikipedia page gives three major 4th moves for White:

4. d3, refusing the gambit in a manner which just looks hopelessly passive to me. Black should be pleased if this happens.

4. exf5, accepting the gambit, when Wikipedia gives: 4. ... e4 5. Nd4 Nf6 (5. ... Nxd4 6. Qh5+) 6. Nxc6

Wikipedia seems to think the position is unclear. On my database there are 6 games in this position after 6. ... bxc6 white lost in 5 of them, however, in the ones that white lost he didn't do anything about 7. ... d5. In the one that white won, 7. Be2 was played - which seems to be necessary (see below).

4. d4, according to Wikipedia white gets a clear advantage after this, the page writers give three lines all of which end with the informator symbol for white is winning, i.e. +-.

This is a correspondence site and that piece of research took rather less time than it did to write this post. For tournaments I'd recommend only using this opening in blitz games. There's some interest in playing it in open invites, but not as a surprise weapon to defeat opponents - in a correspondence game they'll just look it up. The Latvian Gambit, on the other hand, is perfectly playable.

This is Holwell vs Schneider, 1989:


I'm not sure if this is the last word on the 4. exf5 line, but I think white's looking good both after this and after 4. d4.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Game,_Rousseau_Gambit

No one has written the "winning with The Rousseau Gambit" book so this might not be a line that is solid enough to write a book on. Look at Kings's Gambit or Evan's Gambit if you want to play sharp lines.

@congruent said
No one has written the "winning with The Rousseau Gambit" book so this might not be a line that is solid enough to write a book on. Look at Kings's Gambit or Evan's Gambit if you want to play sharp lines.

Well, dubious gambits are played in correspondence games. In an open invite where you've agreed to play a particular line it is of interest. As a device to steamroll opponents it's useless except in blitz or, preferably, bullet games. As a line to play at bullet it's almost perfect as the chances of an opponent running out of time trying to work it out is huge.

I'm quite entertained by your idea of a book on "Winning with the Rosseau Gambit.".

@deepthought said
Well, dubious gambits are played in correspondence games. In an open invite where you've agreed to play a particular line it is of interest. As a device to steamroll opponents it's useless except in blitz or, preferably, bullet games. As a line to play at bullet it's almost perfect as the chances of an opponent running out of time trying to work it out is huge.

I'm quite entertained by your idea of a book on "Winning with the Rosseau Gambit.".

By all means go for it if you want to just that its not "mainstream". For example the King's Gambit has "Winning With the King's Gambit (Batsford Chess Library)" so most of the popular ones have a "Winning with the blah opening".