Gambit

A gambit is a planned material sacrifice — almost always in the opening, almost always a pawn. The sacrificer accepts a small material deficit in exchange for non-material advantages: faster piece development, open lines for attack, or a sustained initiative against an opponent whose pieces are not yet coordinated.

The word gambit comes from the Italian gambetto, meaning a wrestling move to trip an opponent. The chess sense was established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many of the oldest named openings are gambits: the King’s Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4), the Evans Gambit (in the Italian Game), the Smith-Morra in the Sicilian, the Benko in the Benoni.

A gambit is accepted when the opponent takes the pawn, declined when they refuse. Both responses can be sound — the gambit player is usually prepared for either, and theoretical work on both branches is often extensive. The question of whether a gambit is sound — whether the compensation justifies the material — is one of the recurring debates in opening theory.

Engine analysis has been mixed news for gambits. Some classical gambits — the Evans, the Smith-Morra — have survived as practical weapons even though their objective evaluation is roughly equal. Others — the King’s Gambit accepted, the Halloween Gambit — are now considered objectively worse for the sacrificer but remain dangerous against unprepared opponents.