This trick never gets old

Spassky, Larsen, and Alexei Fedorov used it.

They did, but Spassky didn't even have big enough balls to use KG in any of his world championship matches.

The graph on chessgames.com shows that the popularity of KGA fell off in the last third of the 19th century, but KGD remained popular for a few decades longer. What gives?

Probably because King's Gambit Accepted was a staple of Romantic-era chess, but it fell off when Steinitz popularized positional play. The KGD was a bit more "sound", so top-level players continued to use it longer.

After WWI, actually, the popularity of all 1. e4 openings declined--the hypermoderns ridiculed them and preached that 1. d4 was the only rational way to open a game. And players like Marshall and Capablanca, who had been slash attackers prior to the war, all converted to queen-side pawn openings in the 1920s.

It wasn't until after WWII that 1. e4 openings became accepted again in the elite ranks of chess players, and David Bronstein is particularly credited with rehabilitating the King's Gambit, partially because he enjoyed a good slasher game. He then inspired Spassky and Larsen to take it up.

Yeh but since WWII, the only 1. e4 openings that grandmasters use with any regularity are Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, and French.

Ruy Lopez games usually also lead to a closed-up pawn fortress kind of setup. On the other hand, Kasparov is credited with reviving the Scotch Game, which was almost extinct since WWI, and also the Four Knights Game came back into fashion in the 1990s.

>After WWI, actually, the popularity of all 1. e4 openings declined--the hypermoderns ridiculed them and preached that 1. d4 was the only rational way to open a game

But not when you ended up with the 1927 Capablanca-Alekhine match where almost all of the games used the Orthodox Defense of the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Kasparov played the Scotch Game successfully because he's Kasparov. In truth, it's a much simpler and not as interesting opening as Ruy Lopez.

Correct. Ruy Lopez usually leads to a much more positional, closed game than most of the 1. e4 e5 openings. Whether you think that's better or not is your subjective opinion, but GMs do generally prefer strategic, closed games. The Scotch Game is more direct, but it very often leads to large-scale piece exchanges and a simplified, bland endgame. OTOH, positional chess can also get boring.

"Too much of modern chess is concerned with things like pawn structures. Forget all that--checkmate ends the game."

-- Nigel Short

>The graph on chessgames.com shows that the popularity of KGA fell off in the last third of the 19th century, but KGD remained popular for a few decades longer. What gives?
What happened is that at the end of the 19th century, real, systematic opening study started to happen. The King's Gambit was one of the most popular openings of the day, so people really, really booked up on all the inns and outs of defending and attacking with it. At least contemporary conclusions (since overturned) were that it was considerably favorable for white, which led to booked players declining the gambit.

You wouldn't beat me with it, and I'm only a 2000 player. If you like that sort of general setup, go with the Evans Gambit (instead of Bxf7+, play b4). It's much stronger.

Evans Gambit is fun and it was a staple of Romantic era chess (also Kasparov famously downed Anand in 25 moves with it) but in order to play it, you have to hope Black doesn't do 3...Nf6 (the Two Knights Defense) instead.

According to Bobby Fischer, "Anyone who plays Evans Gambit at the GM level is bound to catch at least one opponent unprepared."

That's probably what happened here. When Kasparov moved 3. Bc4, Anand probably expected him to follow with 4. c3. The look on his face when he got 4. b4 instead must have been priceless.

Fischer's "My 60 Best Games" does include two Evans Gambits in it.

I agree. A lot of modern GMs are too cowardly to play openings like King's Gambit. Only the manliest of men can handle that.

Well, back in the 19th century you were considered a chicken if you didn't take a gambit pawn.

Wouldnt the fried liver attack just be all round better? It threatens early fork for the unsuspecting rookie. It also offers the old knight sac in exchange for the pawn and getting there king way outta position. If they play real bad from here you can force check mate them.... but using your queen from here makes for a gooooood attacking start for white. I wouldnt play it against someone who plays a lot... can end badly against a person who can handle it.