Article: 3851 of rec.games.chess.analysis Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.analysis Path: info!dregis From: dregis@exeter.ac.uk (D.Regis) Subject: Re: Advice on Greco Counter Gambit Message-ID: Organization: University of Exeter, UK. References: <325D49E1.6C47@agt.net> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 14:38:25 GMT In article <325D49E1.6C47@agt.net> John Sloan writes: >I am looking into trying something "different" in response to 1.e4 that >might come as a surprise to my opponents. So, I came upon the Greco >Counter Gambit -- 1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 f5 -- and it looks like it gives Black >a good tactical game, though it appears to weaken his Kingside just a bit. > >Has anyone played this opening a lot? Any advice from more advanced players >(I'm around 1500) would be appreciated. I haven't played it a lot, but here's tuppence-worth from a couple of my old posts: In Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:12:43 GMT I wrote: ====================================================================== 1. The fun line is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Bc4 fxe4 4. Nxe5 Qg5... ====================================================================== Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 11:59:59 GMT I heard about a player who devoted hours to learning a bust to the Latvian Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Bc4). Hours. Of course, it was all wasted, because no-one plays the Latvian, but just in case ... And then the day came when someone played the Latvian against him! And his opponent deviated from his analysis... shaken, he went wrong and drew, but was back the next club night to demonstrate a carefully analysed refutation... ====================================================================== 2. Most White players know about this line but avoid it in favour of something less committal. 3. One less committal line goes 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4 when White probably has a small advantage after 6. Nc3 (book), 6. Ne3 (Nimzo) or (best?) 6. Be2, preventing ...Qg6 (Bronstein). White has a number of small pluses (immobile target at e4, White can open up with f3 at an awkward moment, I don't know where the Bc8 is going...) and Black's prospects look pretty dismal to me. I had a quick look at a copy of Tony Kosten's book on this line once and it seems he thinks so too! ====================================================================== The Black King's-side is only weak if White gets enough pieces out to attack it; Black often makes the running on that wing, and can castle long. The one and only time I ever met it I played 3. Nxe5; Black visibly slumped in his chair because all he knew was the 3. Bc4 line, and I won in twenty! We were both graded about 1800 ELO (1900 USCF?) at the time. There are a couple of books just printed in the UK on the Latvian by GMs: "Winning with the Latvian" (KOSTEN) and "The Latvian Gambit: a Grandmaster view" (?LEIN). I haven't bought either but the Kosten book looks OK. I wouldn't spend money on either until you'd borrowed them or had a chance to try the gambit a few times to see how it went, because I'm going to guess that the level of detail in these is way beyond anything you need to play the line. The best sort of depth may be a magazine article, if you can find one. Someone may write one for the newsgroup... -- May your pieces harmonise with your Pawn structure and your sacrifices be sound in all variations D _ / "()/~ Dave Regis &8^D* WWW: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/chess.html || \_/| = DrDave on BICS ~\ / "...what else exists in the world but chess?" _|||__SHEU: ~/sheu.html -- NABOKOV From info!dregis Thu Oct 17 11:01:10 BST 1996