I Ranked EVERY Gambit Against e4 From WORST To BEST 

I swear, no one puts more effort into their videos than Nelson. What an absolute mad lad.

1:05:58 - Top 10 Gambits 1:06:00 - #10 Tal Gambit 1:06:40 - #9 Lopez-Gianutio Countergambit 1:07:38 - #8 Lion Claw Gambit 1:08:44 - #7 Norwegian Gambit 1:10:14 - #6 Vukovic Gambit 1:10:49 - #5 Pickler Gambit 1:11:24 - #4 Nimzowitsch-Marshall Countergambit 1:12:03 - #3 Wasp Variation 1:12:49 - #2 Corkscrew Gambit 1:16:02 - #1 The Bongcloud

I think what's needed is to see White's win rates and Draw rates as well for each of these so we can compare Black, White and Draw percentages simultaneously. But still, this is informative.

This man's hard work and dedication speaks for itself.

Central Countergambit:2:12 Fianchetto Countergambit:2:30 Skipworth Gambit:3:04 Oxford Gambit:3:30 Matovinsky Gambit:3:54 Polish Gambit:4:23 Albin-Chatard Gambit:4:46 Zilbermints Gambit:5:35 Aachen Gambit:6:00 Carr Defense:Zilbermints Gambit:6:32 Norwalde Gambit:6:55 Greco Gambit:8:00 Borg Opening:Zilbermints Gambit:8:36 Ellis Gambit:9:47 Beyer Gambit:10:31 Bledow Countergambit:11:03 Franco-Hiva Gambit:11:46 Herford Gambit:12:30 Gunderam Gambit:13:02 Busch-Gass Gambit:13:39 Hekili-Loa Gambit:14:29 Konikowski Gambit:15:11 Rio Gambit:16:10 Philidor Countergambit:17:01 Alexandre Gambit:18:17 Hammer Gambit:18:49 Panteldakis Countergambit:19:29 Baeuerle Gambit:20:10 Heinola-Deppe Gambit:20:46 Soller-Zilbermints Gambit:21:18 Lopez Countergambit:22:15 Duras Gambit:22:52 Anderssen Gambit:23:27 Horwitz Gambit:24:24 Bielefelder Gambit:25:09 Chiodini Gambit:25:38 Mittenberger Gambit:26:33 Gianutio Countergambit:27:33 Rubinstein Countergambit:28:07 Borg Gambit:29:56 Troon Gambit:30:44 Alapin Gambit:31:36 Quelle Gambit:32:52 Blackburne-Kostic Gambit:33:46 Lucchini Gambit:34:54 Latvian Gambit:36:21 Bavarian Gambit:37:00 Kloss Gambit:37:38 de Smet Gambit:38:32 Cordel Gambit:39:06 Kholmov Gambit:39:34 Erben Gambit:40:19 Cunningham Gambit:40:54 Radisch Gambit:41:58 Kadas Gambit:42:56 Blackburne-Kloosterboer Gambit:43:57 Elephant Gambit:44:23 Sanky-George Gambit:44:47 Calabrese Countergambit:45:34 Khan Gambit:46:26 Geschev Gambit:46:54 Kiddie Countergambit:47:17 Blachly Gambit:48:08 Maroczy Gambit:48:37 Cambridge Gambit:49:42 Traxler Variation:50:24 Miles Gambit:50:56 Hein Countergambit:51:31 Caro Gambit:52:13 Falkbeer Countergambit:53:30 Rousseau Gambit:53:52 Paulsen Countergambit:55:02 Schliemann Gambit:55:49 Anderssen-Cordel Gambit:56:19 Alapin-Blackburne Gambit:57:11 Brussels Gambit:58:50 Portuguese Gambit:59:26 Icelandic Gambit:1:00:11 Weber Gambit:1:01:01 Marshall Gambit:1:01:21 Ponziani Countergambit:1:01:56 Ponziani-Steinitz Gambit:1:02:36 O'Sullivan Gambit:1:03:38 Leonhardt Countergambit:1:04:25 Morphy Gambit:1:05:12 Tal Gambit:1:06:02 Lopez-Giauntio Countergambit:1:06:41 Lion Claw Gambit:1:07:46 Norwegian Gambit:1:08:53 Vukovic Gambit:1:10:15 Pickler Gambit:1:10:54 Nimzowitsch-Marshall Countergambit:1:11:24 Wasp Variation:1:12:04 Corkscrew Gambit:1:12:49 Silberschmidt Gambit:1:14:27 And those are all of the timestamps.

Good to know the gambit I use (Rousseau gambit) is within the top third. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 f5 There are some traps that white can fall for: The 4th most common move is 4. Nc3 which just loses a pawn after 4. … fxe4 if 5. Nxe4 d4 forks knight and bishop Best continuation is 5. Bxg8 exf3 6. Bd5 fxg2 7. Bxg2 Material is now equal but whites king side pawns are isolated. Black can develop the dark-squared bishop and castle to bring the rook into a semi-open f-file to prepare for an attack. In the video, 4. exf5 is shown. 4. … e4 is the only move that give black an advantage. 5. Qe2 The 2nd most common move (Ng1 most common). This pins the pawn from taking the knight and prepares to capture it. 5. … Qe7 Unpins and protects the pawn 6. Ng1 Nf6 The trap is 7. d3 The most common move. White tries to get rid of the pawn but is now losing because of 7. … Nd4 attacking the queen and c2. When the queen moves, Nxc2+ wins at least an exchange. Pawn are equal but white has a doubled c-pawn and an isolated d-pawn. White doesn’t have castle privileges. Note that is 8. Qxc2, 8. … Rd3+ wins the queen.

great compilation of some gambits for e4. Perhaps a future video on d4 gambits would be great. Thanks

Your analysis of gambits is strangely invigorating. I was tired and heavyheaded, but halfway through started play on my chessboard I dont touch a long time some of this positions, thank you for efforts and time you put in your work.

CONGRATS ON 170K SUBS NELSON- WELL DONE. It must really astonish you that when you first had 17k that a short time later you would have 10x that in 170k as you have now. Just seems like yesterday to me when I was one of your earlier subs.

what? where's the stafford gambit?

I watched the full hour of this and was really pumped to see what Nelson had to say about the Colorado countergambit (1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 f5) before I realized it wasn't included :( I think the reason why is because the lichess database doesn't use the word "gambit" at all for the opening which is pretty silly, they just call it the "Lean variation" and "Colorado counter accepted" when the pawn is taken. Oh well, according to the Lichess player database it has a 50% winrate, which means it's on the better side of gambits. I promise you'll have a lot of fun with it, there are a ton of traps when white tries to hold on to the pawn, and even if they don't white has to find some great aggressive moves for several turns straight to prove an advantage.

Basically what we learned is don’t play the king’s gambit as white

I love breakdowns like this! Fantastic video, even though I always just play the pirc defense, I still learned a lot :D

Amazing coverage of the "best by test" opening. Thank you!

Why is Blachly Gambit (#35) considered a gambit? 🧐 Amazing stuff as always, Nelson! It's obvious you put a ton of work into this. EDIT: Oh man, I was so excited to see what the Oops Gambit was, lol.

When are you going to do every gambit against D4? We’re all anxiously awaiting!

22:11 Gambit I created myself! LOL

Can't believe that there's a name for every possible lines, including the ones you would be ashamed to have your name attached to. Props for the hard work, very informative!

Best part of your video is "don't tell anyone" -- you are just amazing... I have learnt so much of opening from you ... Thanks 👍👍

Bravo, brilliant video! Please please please do one on d4 openings (c4 too if possible). The simialrity of many of the gambit ideas (& their refutations, if any) was incredibly educational & cetainly entertaining.

I checked the entire video just to find stafford gambit and it wasn't there :(

On the de Smer gambit (I play it when I can) a common trick is that you trade your light square bishop for their knight and if white castles you can play Bxh2+ to get a queen (Rxd1) and a pawn for a bishop and a rook. When you look on lichess you just keep getting higher win% lines for white, eventually going to a line where white plays the first or second most common move but black wins like 55% of the time!

10:00 Flying knight

The best chess channel on RU-vid, by far. Keep up the great content, Nelson.

This channel have helped improve my tactics drastically..thank you!

36:23 I am even proud to hear that the Latvian gambit is one of your favorites! Great content! Thank You a lot!

Being such the busy man you are away from the chessboard, Nelson, I didn't think you'd have the time to post an hour plus long video like this. 🤣🤣 Anyhow, with such low win rates for Black the Albin-Chatard and Norwalde Gambits are pretty interesting in generating counterplays and eventually counterthreats that White must pay attention to.

I surely would have thought the Stafford Gambit would've at least made it on the list in the top 5. Eric Rosen covers it all the time.

Oh wow, a 1 hour 16+ mins video on gambits! Thanks!

I’ve created quite a few of my own gambits as well…all with a 0% win rate.

28:07 NM Nelson, I actually play the Nimzo-Sicilian as my main Sicilian (it is surprisingly solid and scarcely covered). I have played the Rubinstein Countergambit plenty of times... it's a very sharp line that if white doesn't play the exact move orders to force a draw it is devastating. As black you have to memorize those lines, but it is confirmed by computer competition at all time controls to be legit.

23:16 Nelson, the idea is to move your king to f7 and later go to h8 to shield your king with the knight and bishop while getting an active rook for quick development. Hope this comment helps.

I cant find the stafford rosen gambit.

Complete hard work showing off man. Really you're the best 👍💯 thanks a lot brother ❤

wait busch gass gambit is insane. like u play it similar to the stafford at many points, i only stopped playing it bc no one took the pawn even if i hung it there for 5 moves. if they take the pawn, u usually do nc6 and go from there. main line is they get the bishop out first b4 taking pawn.

Watching your videos has improved my elo rating, probably +200 elo in few months And the video is great, which shows that my random stuff i played before was as bad as i have seen here:)

Did you forget the Stafford?

I guess that the Rio gambit only has a low winrate because most people don't play it that well from the black side. In masters database it has a 49% winrate because it's basically completely equal and 74% of the games are just draws.

I am surprised that the Adelaide Counter Gambit [versus King's Gambit] is not here. I am sure it has been played often enough to be here. If not, I still would be interested to see what the performance of this gambit is? Great job as per usual! Thanks heaps!

Some extra information on some of the gambit. -Busch-Gass Gambit : the next move after Nxe5 is Nc6 and it plays similar to Stafford Gambit I think. -Duras Gambit : Nf6 shown in the video is probably the Fred Defense (or maybe it have 2 name and I don’t know that) and the Duras Gambit is actually f5 then Kf7. The win rate might be influenced by super gm doing goofy stuff moving the king in the second move and still win.

The first one is ctually called the Blackburn shilling gambit

"Bielefelder" Gambit is pronounced without stressing the first "e". It sounds like "Beelefelder" Gambit. By the way "Bielefeld" is a city in Germany (350.000 inhabitants). Appreciate your content very much! 👍

Nelson - intermediate in cooking, master at chess and the world champion of explaining it

Yet another great video. Thanks! Being German myself: Baeuerlein (Bäuerlein) is the belittling form of "Bauer", meaning peasant. "Little farmer" Bielefeld is a German city. You'd pronounce it somewhat like Beelefelt. Cheers!

Nice video! Would be great to have access to that spreadsheet as well to follow through with how the games play out. Hyped for a d4 version of this video!

As a KG player, I’ve faced the Norwalde (e4 e5 f4 Qf6) 7 times! 6W 1L! 🤷🏻‍♂️👍🏽

Nelson, since you asked Baeuerle is pronounced this way: B oi r le (like in pearLEscent). Great video as usual!

1:07:42 Simon Williams has renamed the Lion Claw / Lions Cave -complex into Black Lion opening. I was skeptical, but suppose it has a high win rate. The problem is, white does not have to take that line in the Pirc or Philidor.

Hey Chess Vibes, thanks for the video! Could you please do a very short video personally addressing the stafford gambit and what you think about it? Thanks again!

You made a mistake at #92 (Albin-Chatard Gambit). It's not a gambit for black, it's a gambit for white. The low winrate for black implies it's a very strong gambit for white.

20:26 OK so on the pronunciation of this Baeuerle Gambit, I believe the correct way to say it would be something like [böi-yur-luh]. Idk, my German is like not great.

I literally watched the whole video than doing my homework😅 anyways at 1:15:12 white can also use its bishop 4C to F7 taking the pawn instead of the horse which made a check on black's king (in which black's king can just simply avoid it by just moving and continue the checkmate against white) which also made the game longer since white can develop defences after that move IDK but theres also some parts that white can ignore and strengthen its defence for the incoming strike (especially if they knew about the move)

5:55 1. a6 for black is really only good if you transpose into the French.

I just bought your course from the description and I'm excited to get started! 29 euro, that's actually just a steal.

#66 Duras Gambit is actually very fun to play, but it shouldn't be your main opening

Wow, dxe4 is such a natural move, I liked 57:30 a lot. 1:12:00 is also cool

Great video!! How did these gambit get their names?

One gambit that is in the King's gambit, is the Blachly Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 Nc6, Stockfish gives black a slight advantage but the moves for bad are difficult to spot whereas, white has simpler moves to respond with.

21:14 at the low ratings (400s) i had a game kinda like this where both e-pawns just captured and captured all the way to a8 and a1 and promoted (this was after an early queen trade), it was hilarious

i love this vedio specially..Do a d4 Version and later On Make Vedios On Whites best Gambits.. Keep Doing good works 🔥

#70 Baeuerle Gambit ("Bäuerle" with german accents). Is pronounced "Boy-ah-le"

That was an amazing video. I learned a huge amount. Thank you, Nelson.

12:12 It is very good for white, Nelson.

The fact that the fiencetto is 31% win rate concerns me about our ability to play chess but I like how the matovaski is a 37%

In the Mittenberger Gambit,the positions, if they don't accept it and play e5, looks unpleasent for black to me,even though objectively not bad. Still doesn't look like fun

the first one is you have to know this here's a move it starts with they don't know they just see this slide the queen and bait they're gonna take it (blunder??)

What about the intercontinental ballistic missile gambit?

Really cool video. And i liked seeing my favorite gambit is in the top 25 with 51 percent yeey

I am a seasoned vet in #18 The Oops gambit. Feel free to ask me anything, I’ve played it thousands of times

Could you upload the excel sheet? I saw a couple that were under the 999 games, even some below 100 (even 1) and those ones could be interesting to see aswell

Pls make gambits for d4 as well! I would love to see a few like Benko and Englund (the only 2 ones I know which one is good for white and one is good for black)

Great video! Maybe another gambit you didn't cover is e4,e5 Nf3,Nc6 Bc4,Nf6 Ng5,d5 exd5,Na5 Bb5+,c6 dxc6,bxc6 Qf3,cxb5 Qxa8. It has 10k games played with 48 win rate for black and 49 for white. Evaluation is 0.0.

wait. where's stafford?

54:20 actually, 5... d5 is a mistake because of 6 Qh5+. u have to play 5... Nf6 first and then d5 later. also, theres 5 Qe2 and black is supposed to play 5... Qe7 because if 5... d5 white has 6 Bb5 which would allow the knight the e5 and d4 squares to move to. theres also a trap after 5 Qe2 Qe7 in 6 Ng1 Nf6 7 d3 Nd4 8 Qd1 Nxc2+! 9 Qxc2 exd3+ winning the queen (i play this is black and have watched like all of the 2 videos there are on it lol)

I play the Kings Bishop gambit and can say that the Bledlow gambit is tricky to play against.

I thought #92 was the Alekhine-Chatard?

That last gambit is vicious, that’s the most savage gambit I’ve ever seen. #1 68% win rate. Good lord. That one might be worth studying.

What happened to the Stafford Gambit?

Not sure if it leads to a big difference, but it might be better to score the games by average score for black rather than win rate. I.e probability of black win *minus* probability of white win.

there is another gambit also called the morphy gambit, e4 c5 d4 cxd4 nf3

This is a great list but I did have a question. How should we view the win draw loss rate of each gambit? Should we see it as win rate alone is the mark to judge it as viable or not? Or should we rate the gambit by win + draw rate as the mark of viability? On a side note, I like the fact that the list is about black's counterplay.

0:01 33:45 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nd4?! is known as the Blackburne Shilling Gambit. 1:08:43 Norwegian Gambit: You present a line with 8 g3. This is not so good for Black if White plays 8 Qe4/Ne2. 1:12:14 Wasp Variation: You present a line with 5 Nxf7. This is not so good for Black if White plays 5 Bxf7/d4.

33:53

oh hell yes, I love this sort of video. Gonna try some of these!

Amazing! Now for the queen's pawn gambits. . .

If you want to cut down your work load, but still help us a lot, you could cut it down to the top 20 or 25 for d4, because we are really just interested in the best ones! - heck, even a top 10!

I really need a part2 please like button has been push!!!. ps love your work always

You didn't put staford gambit here

I keep trying the corkscrew gambit but my opponents play d4 instead of taking my pawn with their knight

I'm confused about the winrate. All the winrates seem extremely high. Does this exclude the possibility of a draw or something?

Great video! But I would really love to see a video instead of against e4 opening, we have something like against e4 e5 d4. I think this way is a better learning opportunity for us who don't know how to play against some openings.

What if, somebody instead of recapturing with bishop, recaptures with the pawn in the Alapin-Blackburne Gambit? (I know of course, this ruins your pawn structure.)

1:14:02 KGA

Your videos are the best

I'm not sure how to interpret things like "45% win rate". A 45% win rate for Black seems pretty awesome to me, considering the majority of the games (given decent time controls) end in a draw. Is that 45% of the decisive games are a win for Black (completely ignore draws), or is that the average number of points score by Black (for instance +4=1-5 scores 4.5 out of 10, aka 45%). Or something else?

Excellent work, Nelson!!! Now, would you be kind enough to share that spreadsheet with us ? 🤔🤔🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

00:01 THIS MOVE START WITH

1. Gambit Sandomierski

Big chess video gem, found much inspiration.

I watch all gambits and I still am confused on every single one.