I love playing the King’s Gambit. It’s a great opening for those who want to overwhelm their opponent with tactics and piece development. There are plenty of positional chess ideas too. One of the downsides of playing the King’s Gambit is the critical decision on where to put your king. The position below is one such example. It’s from a correspondence game played on Chess.com.

I just played 10. Qxe4 and realized that Black might hit me with Bh4+. This is an interesting intermezzo as it forces my King to move and disrupts castling. The question is: Where to put the king? This is not a computer tactics problem so don’t put the position on a computer. Analyze it. Where does White put his king and what are the ramifications of the move? It is a tough positional chess problem. Take some time to look at it and post your comments below. If you give up, click the Answer below.

Click below to see the answer to this positional chess problem.

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Kd1 is the right move but hard to find. I played Kf1 and got into trouble since Black can play Re8 with the threat of Re1 (the bishop helps in the attack).But the biggest reason for Kd1 is to get the h1 rook involved. With the King of f1, it is hemmed in and has no activity. White is a little worse after Kd1 but can equalize comfortably after a few defensive moves. A tough positional chess problem but one that is important to understand.

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