I am a beginner, and am learning the king’s gambit. When I review the computer analysis, it marks most of these opening moves, which are classic setup for king’s gambit play, as blunders. Am I missing something, or does computer analysis just not take such things into account?
Stockfish hates most lines of the King's Gambit. GMs mostly don't play it anymore.
But your not a GM, so no sense going by that. I'm skeptical a true beginner should be playing any gambit, but once you get a bit beyond the beginner and learn the opening theory, King's Gambit is fine for a player that wants a bloody tactical game. Well fine-ish. There are a lot of lines to learn including 2. ... d5, a countergambit which gives black the more aggressive/fun position - and which stockfish likes for black. You don't tend to find too many players rated above 1500 that make the King's Gambit their main weapon.
King's Gambit is a bad opening. White can hold a draw but that is about it.
amongst strong players that is roughly the case. White does win win 30% and 35% for black so white definitely can win still. But once we are on level of typical lichess player anrou 1500 lichess blitz/rapdid ie. I selected from opening browser 1400 and 1600 and blitz and white wins 53% of games while Nf3 wins 51%. And extra time does not seem to help black as in rapid white wins 55% .
So it is a good opening for online playing. May even result faster learning curve.
One has to to 2200 bracket on lichess for Nf3 scoring better. So theoretical problems with the move are not important unless you quite strong like top 10% of the site.
#1: When evaluating moves, engines do not care if it is classic, book, popular, and so on; it only cares about the move's strength. Since King's Gambit is a bad opening, the engine says that it is (of course, that could change with future discoveries).
I suspect that often times, when people are confused by an engine's labeling of an opening as an error, it is because said opening has a name to it. 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 h6. Here, 4...h6 does not have a name, yet is a fantastic move; one of the few sound gambits, in fact. Was this part of your confusion?
Oh, I am a raw beginner for sure, which is why I am so interested in the analytics. I am trying to learn and understand many of them, so I am not stuck on king’s gambit at all, just broadening my horizons. But king’s gambit is fun to play, because it doesn’t take thirty moves before the blood begins to spill.
So, for you experienced players, how do you think the analytics stack up against your actual playing abilities?
@D-Thurm I was successful with the King's Gambit when I played it, which was from ca. 2018 to ca. 2023. Nor do I begrudge the time I spent playing it even though I have probably retired it for good.
I can see the usual suspects offering their "wisdom", but fortunately I have blocked myself from reading them.
Generally speaking, when those subjects find themselves short of spamming opportunities, they can still count on someone calling them to condemn the king's gambit, at least once a week... (Why not something else, just for the sake of variety?)
Et voilà... Point scored... Wow!
Personally, on this matter, I prefer to follow the opinion of the sensible and very much non-adventurous Max Euwe.
It turns out blundering a pawn on 2 isn't a great idea.
Not looking at the engine lines, but former world champion Spassky played the King's Gambit many times and never lost a game with it (though he did draw many). So it's definitely at least good as a surprise weapon