f pawn

If you play the King's Gambit, you usually checkmate your opponent before even thinking about castling.

Honestly the kind of thinking that you should not weaken the kingside is great for beginners to beat other beginners but terrible for overall knowledge and progression. There are many positions where the objectively correct best way forward is to loosen pawns around your own king.

Almost all hard and fast rules in chess are nice for short term improvement but will cap your skill ceiling if you use it everygame.

@CarnusMagelsun I second that.
It's easy to confuse general guidelines with absolute commandments.

@pirtnu It's time for you to play birds opening.

@NuclearKnight castling is very common in king gambit, since it gets the kingside rook to potentially open f-file.

If you want a truly suicidal example:
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7 4. Bc4 Bh4+ 5. g3 fxg3 6. O-O gxh2+ 7. Kh1

Hah, I guess it is then. I will start playing it.

I still think nobody really addressed my point. I guess 1600 players are still technically beginners, or just barely beginning not to completely suck, but actually I get more wins against 17 and 1800 with the f pawn thing than 1600s. I think it is possible to get cocky and believe there is no such thing as a bad move.

And even then, I ain't even said it was a bad move. I just said you better be a master. Because if not, no matter what fancy pancy strategy you try, I'm coming for our a**.