Sacrifice three pawns, let the opponent totally devastate your king side, and hide the king behind an enemy pawn. Yes, that’s exactly you will do! On top of it, you will win the game, of course. What is the Bertin Gambit?
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. ♘f3 ♝e7 4. ♗c4 ♝h4+ 5. g3 fxg3 6. O-O gxh2+ 7. ♔h1!?
The gambit is actually a variant of the Cunningham Defense (1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. ♘f3 ♝e7), and White allows Black to make the bishop charge to h4 (the defense idea, actually). However, instead of playing the expected 5. ♔f1, White sacrifices two more pawns to castle to the wrecked king side, followed by blocking the almost promoted black pawn with their own king. What’s the point of all this?
Unfortunately, I didn’t find a single game with this specific opening in our database. Perhaps nobody was crazy enough, not even once over twenty years, to try it out. So, it’s up to me to give it a chance in a casual game. Before it happens, let’s see a sample game I found elsewhere: