Cunningham Gambit
Submitted by
on Wed, 04/08/2009 at 3:53pm.
One of the simpler variations of the King's Gambit is the less popular Cunningham Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Nf6. After 4.Bc4 or 4.Nc3, Black could also choose to play ...Bh4 giving a check and preventing White from castling. Either way, the results can become hard and complex to evaluate for beginning and advanced players. The problem with playing 4...Bh4+ is that it leaves the bishop hanging for a possible pawn counterattack from White. This tactic of breaking through White's defences with a barrage of bishops and pawns was unsuccessfully tried in a game by Henry Bird, playing the Black pieces, against Paul Morphy:
Chess masters in the early twentieth century painstakingly examined numerous positions that arise from this unique gambit with unfinished results. In his 1932 chess manual, Emanuel Lasker wrote:
"The Cunningham Gambit has gone wholly out of fashion." (page 65)
And it sure has. Popularity graphs for this gambit have shown a dramatic decrease starting at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Cunningham Gambit was first introduced, just up to the 1970s when the last peak of this gambit was shown. Fashion changes and so it does in chess. New generations of players means new ideas and styles. Perhaps maybe one day the chess world will see this fancy gambit once again in action.
Works Cited
Chess openings: King's Gambit Accepted, Cunningham (C35). 2004. 20/20 Technologies. 08 April 2009. <http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=c35>.
Lasker, Emanuel. Lasker's Manuel of Chess. New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1960.