King’s Gambit 1.e4 e5. 2.f4 VS Danish Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3

This article will use the lichess.org statistics to compare the scores for White to see if we can find any patterns.

Both score badly for white at master level, however the Danish gambit has an awful score!

White’s win/draw/loss:

King’s Gambit: 31% / 32% / 37%

Danish Gambit: 17% / 40% / 43%

However these terrible statistics for White don’t hold true at amateur level. In fact let’s look at the data. Below shows the difference between White’s winning percentage and Black’s.

From the above charts we can make 3 conclusions:

1.The Danish Gambit scores much better for White than the King’s Gambit.

The Danish Gambit scores very well for white at all time controls for ratings up to 2000. In particular the Danish Gambit is considerably higher scoring in bullet and blitz. One other thing to notice is that the King’s gambit scores better for black at higher ratings and shorter time controls, whereas the Danish gambit always scores better for white.

2.Both Gambits work better when the players are lower rated.

As expected, lower rated Black players are more likely to fall for basic traps early in the game. Also lower rated players defend poorly and White can often win with a “cave-man” style attack. The higher rated Black players will know all the traps and will be able to get to the middlegame, where they can start to make use of their extra material.

3.Both Gambits are better for white at longer time controls

This would suggest that Black has the simpler plans and it’s white who needs more time to figure out the complications. One could argue that in both gambits white has multiple attacking ideas and needs time to choose the correct path.

In summary, conclusions 2 and 3 were expected. However the performance difference between the two gambits was not. The Danish is a very high scoring opening for white and the graphs suggest that you can keep playing it up until 2200 rating. The king’s gambit however should be abandoned once you start to reach 2000 rating and is a poor choice for bullet and blitz.

Anyway I look forward to comparing more gambits in future posts.