"Who's Afraid of the King's Gambit?" by Eric Schiller, 1998
Chess Enterprises, English Algebraic Notation, Paperback, 100pp.,
$9.95

Reviewed by Glenn Budzinski

American Master Eric Schiller, in the Introduction to his latest
work, "Who's Afraid of the King's Gambit?," writes that "This
venerable opening seems to scare the pants off of some tournament
players, for reasons which are not particularly clear...This book is
offered as a remedy to the problem." Essentially, his work is a
repertoire book for playing the Black side of the King's Gambit.
Thus, specific variations are advocated into which Black can steer
the game and obtain no worse than an equal position, regardless of
the move order played by White. 

This is a brief book, originally published in 1989, revised and re-
published in 1998. It consists of a total of 100 pages, segregated
into five parts and twenty chapters, several of which are only a
couple of pages in length. Part 1 covers five chapters of variations
Schiller refers to as the "King's Knight Gambits," some of the
oldest known lines of the opening, which occur after the moves 1
e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5, followed by 4 h4 g5 5 Ne5 or 5 Ng5, or 4
Bc4 Nc6. Chapter 6, Part 2, covers 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nc3; Part 3,
"Bishop's Gambits," explores Bishop move variations by White
such as 3 Bc4, 3 Be2, 3 Bd3, and 3 Bb5; Queen moves are
reviewed under Part 4: 3 Qf3, 3 Qe2, 3 Qg4 and 3 Qh5; the final
part, 5, looks at various other moves such as 3 d4, 3 h4 and even 3
Kf2. It should be noted that there is no coverage provided for the
Fischer Defense (3...d6), the Muzio or Falkbeer Gambits, among
other variations, except where transpositions into one of Schiller's
lines happen to occur.

Three chapters, or about 25% of the book, are dedicated to the
move order 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 Bc4 Nc6 (Chapter 3),
which leads to positions that are good for Black in the Hanstein
Gambit after either 5 0-0 d6 6 Nc3 h6 7 d4 Bg7 (Chapter 4) or 5 d4
Bg7 6 c3 h6 7 0-0 d6 (Chapter 5). Kudos to Schiller for citing the
move 4 Nc6 as having previously appeared in Mieses-Chigorin,
Vienna 1903. There is also nothing new about the game Heuer-
Villard, Tallinn 1964, probably the critical line of this variation: 4
Bc4 Nc6 5 d4 Bg7 6 c3 h6 7 0-0 d6 8 g3 g4 9 Nh4 f3 10 Nd2 Nf6
11 Nf5 Bf5 12 ef5 0-0 13 Bd3 Re8 14 h3 h5 15 hg4 hg4 16 Nf3
gf3 17 Qf3 d5 18 Bg5 Kf8 19 g4 Qd7 20 Bh4, reaching a key
crossroads. Both "Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, Volume C
(ECO)" and Korchnoi and Zak, in the latter's highly-regarded
monograph King's Gambit, stop here and comment that White has
an attack. Schiller, on the other hand, now suggests 20...Ne4 "with
a clear advantage" for Black, but offers no further analysis (page
49). Given the critical nature of this position for the entire line, a little
scrutiny would seem to be in order (despite Schiller's apparent
belief to the contrary.) Plugging the position into M Chess Pro 6.0
computer software produced the wild and wooly 21 f6 Bxf6 22
Bxf6 Nxf6 23 Qxf6 Qxg4+ 24 Kf2 Re6 25 Qh8+ Qg8 26 Qh5
Rf6+ 27 Re1 Re8+ 28 Kd2 Qg2+ 29 Bd2, when Black has a pawn
in an unclear, open position. Although Schiller's 20...Ne4 might
ultimately turn out to be the answer, to offer such a
recommendation without substantiating analysis or practical tests
borders on irresponsible journalism, in this writer's opinion.

Against 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ne5, which is the
Kieseritzky Gambit (White's "only means of obtaining a
completely equal game" against 3...g5, according to Korchnoi and
Zak), Schiller in Chapter 1, recommends 5...d6 6 Nxg4 Be7 7 d4
Bxh4+ 8 Nf2 Qg5 9 Nc3 Nf6 10 Qf3 Ng4!, a move not given by
ECO, Korchnoi and Zak, or Alexei Suetin in "Russisch bis
Konigsgambit" (from 1988.) Continuing with 11 Nd1 Nc6 12 c3
Nxf2 13 Nxf2 Bg3 14 Kd1 Be6 15 Nh3 Qg7 16 Be2 0-0-0 17 Nxf4
Bxf4 18 Bxf4 d5 19 e5 Bf5, he quotes Maser and Raingruber who
suggest 20 Kc1 Bg6 21 Qh3+ Kb8 22 Bg5. Instead of 20...Bg6,
Schiller recommends 20...Rhg8 "with a firm grip on g4", a
conclusion based upon only the barest of analysis (page 14).
Nonetheless, Schiller may be onto something with 10...Ng4!, since
the other sources only follow variations of Steinitz-Green, London
1863, which involve the move ...Bg3 rather than ...Ng4. ECO, for
example, offers 10...Bg3 11 Bd2 Nc6 12 Bb5 Bd7 13 Bc6 bc6 14
0-0-0 0-0-0 15 Nd3, with a White advantage. 

In Chapter 2, the ancient Allgaier Gambit is discussed, which
occurs after the moves 3 Nf3 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ng5 h6 6 Nxf7 Kxf7.
Schiller continues with 7 Bc4+ d5 8 Bxd5+ Kg7, indicating that
the analysis upon which this move is based is a "recent" discovery
(page 21). Although his main continuation is the inferior 9 Bxb7,
he wisely includes a footnote citing 9 d4 (suggested by ECO, K &
Z and Suetin), as a "better try" due to 9...f3 10 gf3 Nf6 11 Nc3 Bb4
12 Bc4 gf3 13 Rg1+ Ng4 14 Qf3 Qh4+ 15 Rg3 Rf8 16 Bf4 and
now, presumably, the "recent" 16...Be7!, improving on 16...Qf6 of
Marco-Schlechter, Vienna 1903. While 16...Be7! may not be as old
as the opening itself, "recent" hardly seems an appropriate term for
describing a move that's been known since at least 1981 (ECO).

Since Schiller makes the claim in the Introduction that "All minor
variations have been covered, even those which are silly at first
sight," this writer can't help but take him to task for not addressing
1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nh3, which has appeared in various issues of
Hugh Myers' New "Myers Opening Bulletin" (NMOB). For
instance, NMOB #4 from the end of 1993 takes a look at a critical
variation of 3 Nh3, with the help of a computer: 3...Qh4+ 4 Nf2
Nc6 5 c3 Nf6 6 Qe2 with, perhaps, Qc2, Bd3 and 0-0 to follow,
obtaining at least a playable position for White. Myers also
provides analysis of 3...f5 and 3...d5, leading to certain positions
where White can even gain an advantage. If one is going to offer
coverage of moves such as 3 Kf2, 3 Qh5 and 3 g3 (the latter
illustrated by a 13 move White win), then certainly 3 Nh3 is also
deserving of a place.

"Who's Afraid of the King's Gambit?" can perhaps best be
summarized by the old adage "One gets what one pays for." In
today's big bucks chess book market, an opening book that retails
for less than $10 and isn't a pamphlet, is probably going to be a
good buy if it has any value at all. In the case of this work, it is
reasonably well researched and the reader will get a few solid
suggestions for playing the Black side of the King's Gambit, but
not much else. As long as the prospective buyer isn't expecting to
find a lot of new ideas (even 10...Ng4 of Chapter 1 made its
appearance over 100 years ago)or detailed analysis of tournament
praxis, he probably won't be disappointed.