Expert: Tony D'Aloisio - 1/27/2010

Question
Tony,

Hi! I just came in third place on Chess.com's King's Gambit tournament, and as I had success with it, I was wondering how effective I'm likely to find it in practical tournament play? I'm about 1700 playing strength, and the tournament I play in is the under 2000 at the Manhattan Chess Club (which generally has players that play above their rating strength IMO).

Answer
I think this is a question you're better off answering for yourself.  My guess would be--since it's such a sharp opening--that you will get a lot of quick wins (or winning positions) against weaker players, but will probably have more difficulty than with most openings against stronger players.  But of course the only way for you to really find out is to try it out; after all, if Spassky (among others) played it, it can't be too terrible. :)

One other thing to bear in mind (as far as ratings go), is that chess.com ratings are customarily 300 points or so higher than USCF...so if you're using them as a benchmark, it's not surprising if the folks at the MCC seem a lot stronger than they ought to be.