Chesspublishing.com (Problems)

by Don Lester, Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 06:43 (7216 days ago) @ siegrun

? Well, I'm glad our work is back again! I hope we can still see any news via
? this forum. Since it's only 2 more months of work, it doesn't seem
? worthwhile to access yet another website. Paying ? 17 was a very good
? investment. In the mean time I've found many websites where you can study
? chess free of charge...
?
? I enjoyed studying the Gallagher article even though I scored badly. But
? this is because I don't do gambits - once my pawn is gone, I'd probably
? never get it back again (my tactics aren't good enough for this!)
? So, I went through it quickly & now I'm going to take a wee chess set & go
? over all the variations & subvariations. I did notice that he sometimes
? said that there would be compensation for the lost pawn, but since these
? were complicated positions, in my case ...?

I have problems with gambits too. I don't think they really work for people until they are good enough to take advantage of subtle positional advantages and maintain initiative. Afterall, once you lose the initiative the positional advantage you got from the pawn sacrifice will erode away and then all you accomplished was a material disadvantage ;)

For players that understand the subtleties better they obviously have their place. I bet you really have to be close to 2000 in your rating before you can consistently be a decent gambit player (of course, someone will now disagree with me).