The Italian Game: Blackburne-Kostić Gambit: Nxe5 — Playing Black

You've gambited a pawn, but look at what you've gained: your dark-squared bishop has an open diagonal, your knight on d4 is annoyingly placed, and White's king is still at home with no castle in sight. The engine prefers +0.79 for White, meaning the position is not a blunder — it's just that your opponent has a path to an edge if they play precisely. The key point is that most opponents at club level do not play precisely. Across 9,480 games, White scores 56.8% — a solid result, but far from crushing. Black still wins 40.2% of the time, which is a much higher share than many other gambit lines where you are down a pawn. Your compensation comes in activity and attack, especially against the f7 square. If White doesn't know the refutation, you can generate serious threats before they have time to consolidate.

The engine's best move is 5.Bxd5, taking your offered pawn with the bishop. From there the suggested continuation runs 5...Qg5 6.Bxf7+ Kd8. White returns the material on f7 to blunt your attack, and the king ends up stuck in the centre. This is the line you need to be ready for — your queen on g5 threatens mate and creates chaos, but White's bishop sacrifice forces the king to d8, where it is exposed but not immediately dead. The resulting position is still +0.79 in White's favour, so you are playing for active counterplay rather than a forced win. Notice that White is not playing 5.exd5, 5.Nxf7, or 5.Bb3 — those are all known mistakes that make your life much easier. If your opponent knows the correct move (Bxd5), you are in for a tough fight. If they don't, you may have a great game ahead.

Let's look at the most-played continuations and what they mean for you as Black. The critical line is 5.Bxd5 — played in 6,737 games, where White scores 60.6%. That is still White's best move, but note that Black still wins nearly 39% from there. Against the inferior options, your results improve dramatically: 5.exd5 (2,131 games) sees White score only 48.1% — meaning Black actually outscores White from this position. The tiny sample of 5.Bb5+ (71 games) is even better for you: White scores just 28.2%, so Black wins the vast majority of those games. The key takeaway: many White players will not find 5.Bxd5 over the board. If they play 5.exd5 or 5.Bb5+ or 5.Nxf7, you are getting excellent practical chances, sometimes with a winning score.

The engine identifies three clear errors White can make in this position: 5.exd5 is a blunder that loses roughly 3.1 pawns of advantage (the engine wanted Bxd5 instead). 5.Nxf7 is a mistake costing about 2.2 pawns. And 5.Bb3 is a blunder losing roughly 3.7 pawns. Each of these moves gives away White's opening edge and hands you a serious advantage. If you see any of them on the board, you should sense that your opponent has taken a wrong turn. Your job is to stay alert — don't rush your attack, but do look for aggressive developing moves that punish their passive or greedy play. The drill below will let you practise reacting to each of these sub-optimal replies, so you can confidently convert when your opponent slips.