Kings Gambit – The Chess Page

Country Teams Tournament – Rounds 5 & 6

Leave a Comment / Caro-Kann, Country Teams Tournament, Kings Gambit / January 3, 2012

In Round 5 of the tournament I came up against the Kings Gambit. I am not as well versed in the Kings Gambit as I would like to be but I managed to play a strong opening taking advantage of a few opening mistakes by my opponent to come up with a strong attack. This was my favourite game of the tournament as there were some great attacking opportunities that I really had to think through in order to achieve the win.

In my last round game I was ready to try something aggressive and prepared to play a little risky. I however did more than that and played some very poor moves! For the second time in the tournament I blundered a Queen, but my position was already beginning to become quite weak by this point and it shows the importance of incorporating opening principles and theories into games! The opening is the Caro Kann. The game did not follow the mainline variation and I played some mistakes early in the opening.

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Famous Games – Smothered Mate

Hello again!

So I have realised that the smothered mate technique has come up a few times in my recent posts so I thought I would delve a little deeper and have a look at some other examples of this great mating strategy to share with you!

The following game is a match between James McConnell and Paul Morphy in the year 1849. McConnell opens with the Kings Gambit and Morphy continues with the Kings Gambit accepted. Morphy shows a great example of how to set up a position in order to achieve a smothered mate.