Lesson 15: A Game with a Gambit

A gambit is a gamble, an instance of gambling. In chess it usually refers to purposely losing a piece in hopes that the resulting board state will lead to compensation (a win, an attack, future material, anything whose value exceeds the first lost piece).

It's easy to compare material. We know that a knight and bishop are (in simplest scenarios) worth a rook and a pawn, by performing math.

But gambits let you make "fuzzy" comparisons. How do you compare a piece to a position? Is a pawn worth a rook on an open file? Is a knight worth a battery against your opponents kingside? Exploring these risks by taking them and meeting them with a friend is one of the main things that makes chess a lot of fun!

For this lesson, we went over a game published at http://www.academicchess.com/worksheets/grabsky_game.pdf

The player "Hardy" offers the piece, and the player "Grabsky" takes (or GRABS!) nearly every piece offered. While Hardy is down on material, his remaining pieces are always more active than the "sleeping" piece of Grabsky. Play through this game again!