How to Spot Gambits in a Chess Game

Video Transcript

"The next opening is an opening that used to be played quite a lot at one time. But, is much more rarely played now. But, it is significant in that it is probably the oldest of the so called gambits. And, when you come to look more deeply into the openings in Chess you'll find that gambits form a very big part of it. A gambit is basically just a sacrifice of usually of a pawn, in the hope of getting a stronger position in return. And, usually the pawn that is lost is very quickly recovered anyway. Now, in this king's gambit the again the center king pawns were moved to the fourth row. And, then the distinguishing feature was that white would then play this move. Now, one I think very undesirable aspect of this and probably the reason why this opening is no longer very popular is that it immediately takes away one of the key offending pawns from the king. Especially, when if you remember when the king castles to here. But, nevertheless it was played and it's worth looking at. And, typically in this situation the gambit can either be declined or accepted. Declining would mean, playing something like this simply not going for it. Or, accepting it would indeed mean taking the pawn. The gambited or as it's sometimes called the poisoned pawn. So, we come to here and then probably the next move for white would be possibly this move. And, thereafter very shortly this pawn would be developed so that he now has an attack and has a way of recovering this pawn here. And, as I say the underlining idea is that it does get the pieces out quickly."