The King's Gambit as White

This is a roadmap for the King's Gambit player. The emphasis is on a positional handling of this venerable opening, complete from the White point of view (which is not to say tactics have been understated).

Every known source has been sifted to present the strongest play by both sides, and all known sideline moves for Black are delved into, in order to fully arm the player of the white pieces. Several new books and a proliferation of KG ideas and games in the past eight years warrant this revised third edition in which the number of illustrative games has more than doubled over the previous edition.

Both accepted and declined variations are covered in detail, including critical rewrites in the important Fischer (1. e4 e5 2. f4 ef4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4) variation, and the Kieseritzky (1. e4 e5 2. f4 ef4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5), the backbone of our KG.

Bob Raingruber and Lou Maser are old hands at this opening and their two previous editions (with GM Larry Christiansen) prove they must be doing something right.