4 ms·
The BongCloud is pretty hard to play. I prefer the "Wandering King" (a.k.a "The Fred", or when playing mirrored moves as black "The Fried Fox") which is: 1. f
by rectang 5y ago
The BongCloud is pretty hard to play. I prefer the "Wandering King" (a.k.a "The Fred", or when playing mirrored moves as black "The Fried Fox") which is:
1. f3...
2. Kf2
It's not quite as bad as it looks, and at my level (~2000 lichess blitz/bullet) can generally serve its purpose to get people out of book and into novel middle games. (I also play blitz Chess 960 which is even better in this regard.)
- nojs 5y agoDoesn’t 1. f3 serve that purpose without the king move?
- rectang 5y agoThat's true. But the Wandering King invites strong tactical aggression because the king is so enticingly exposed — which is super fun to play against! In fact, the king isn't suicidally exposed, it's about as well defended as the king is during the Steinitz Gambit, which also involves an early king move under the main line. I like playing the Steinitz too, but opponents rarely go along with it. Same with King's Gambit in general, people generally just play to defang it and trade trade trade down to something drawish. Yuck. I hate drawish chess. I don't like the Bongcloud so much because it's even more cramped and I find it hard to play out of. But it could also be that it transposes into King's Indian / Queen's Indian lines I don't like so much, rather than Steinitz Gambit wildness.