Win with the Halloween Gambit!!!

I think as a IM pfren is/was a lot better than 2000. 2000 is still basically rubbish in terms of clinically exploiting and capitalizing on openings, sure they may make some use of opening advantage but it's nothing like the importance of openings for 2300 and up, it wouldn't be some wild thing for them to lose to a terrible opening, especially a trappy one. IM is meant to be around 2400 as a rule of thumb, so pfren must have been pretty decent.  

2000 also isn't rated "far higher" than a 1800 player, the 1800 player would be expected to around 1/3rd of the time. It's the same difference as between a 1400 player and a 1600 player, it's just the psychological significance of the 2000 that makes it sound high, and the fact one of the players is slightly below 1800.  

Do you think so? In my experience here, a gap of 200 points means you win nearly all the time, at fairly long time controls. Shortening the controls makes it more random.

Even though 1400 - 1600 is a much bigger % difference, 1800-2000 seems a much bigger gap for the lower rated player to make up. They blunder all the time and 2000+ don't.

If you subscribe to hulu it’s huluween gambit 

I don't just think so, I know so. According to the normal elo formula a 400 point rating difference gives about 10% success for the lower rated player. A 200 point difference should be about the square root of that - ie. a very rough ballpark of 1/3rd of the time. 

In particular in any ratings system that hasn't been tampered with the difference in rating leads to the same success vs failure for each player no matter where they are on the scale. So eg. the success rate for the lower player between 1400 and 1600 players should be the same as between 2600 and 2800 players. FIDE uses this traditional elo rating system, I believe chess.com uses some more logistic distribution formula or something like that but it's the same basic idea.  

... and the timer is set to weekly, or monthly?

why

Let's be real, White almost never gets his knight back. But on the bright side he's still winning! You don't play this because you wish to reach an endgame after hours of micro millimetric positional improvements you know.

Maybe the real compensation for the knight is the frens and pfrens we made along the way. 

Is the Halloween really that bad of an opening? I still play it OTB and have a good 300 blitz games with it here on chess.com, without getting too unbearable of positions. There are a few lines such as 7...c6 or 7...d5 that allow black to not get squashed, but white still gets 1-2 pawns or 2 minor for rook back, along with a space advantage and some attacking chances. Importantly, its a fun gambit! In the 5...Ng6 lines white gets light square attacks (Bc4+Qf3 atk f7, or f4-f5 launch), or 5...Nc6 and white gets dark square attacks when the pawns roll up to d6 with some Nb5-c7 threats. The most difficulty the gambit appears to face is the declined 5...Nc6 6.d5 Bb4!! 7.dxc6 Nxe4. In blitz it seems to have merit at the very least in "compensation on the clock," and even OTB in quick tournaments, say, 30 or 45 D5, the psychological pressure of defending prompts returning the knight, especially once f4-f5 hits the board. Objectively, against an engine, with absolutely perfect play black is probably winning, but humans are fallible, especially in the face of rare and sharp openings. Perhaps that's a hope-chess approach - too much social rather than formal science, but trickery can be a win condition! I'm sure Tal would agree 🙂

White has chances, definitely. 

But he is not winning, because "winning" would be an objective assessment of the position.

Sacrificing your knight on move four when your opponent plays sound chess would never be "winning".

Chances of trolling hehehe....

And there are no other universes, so .......

Just having looked at it for the first time ever, it's at least equal for black and Qa5 maybe wasn't the best. If I was facing it for the first time, then not knowing the continuations, I would probably play 6. ....Bb4, which gets black out of any danger and gives black a useful edge in development. It took me ten seconds to spot that and I went on the analysis tool and it likes it, although not as much as it likes hanging on to the knight.

I've just read the O.P. and Mayo indeed likes 6. ...Bb4 and awards it a !!. I would only give it a ! at the most, because it's such an obvious way to bow out and, especially at blitz or rapid, if you don't know the lines, black will just castle quickly and be better, so there's no real excuse for losing with black.

Hahahaha lol at people who genuinely think the halloween gambit can be busted on the basis of general principles, without knowing it before. Dogmatism gets you too far and yes I can somewhat understand your impression (which was mine when I saw some dude playing it for the first time).

Halloween was playable in correspondence chess until computer centaur chess became the norm and the refutation lines aren't obvious at all (to people who would claim that the lines are logical.  What would have you done before the computer era, with your lone brain and your books?)

I've been promised disaster a lot but keep winning against people who are in disgust, why is that?

This is like people who say Mikhail Tal was weak because he blundered a lot, by looking at his positions with Stockfish :-D 

You make valid points, but it does not mean white is winning. An opening that is playable, or sound on the basis that the position is messy is just a playable opening. You may win, you may lose. 

But white is definitely not "winning".

Just so we're all on the same page here - you do realize that when people say "winning" they mean has some advantage right? 

Chess is the only game in the entire world where for some inexplicable, absurd reason some not too bright people came up with the idea to call a position "winning" means that they will definitely win unless the opponent makes some huge blunder. That is not what the word "winning" means anywhere else in the english language. "winning" means is ahead, that's what winning means and it's a stupid thing some people who probably felt way too smart for themselves decided to apply to it.     

While white still may not have advantage against any remotely competent player, just think about how the king's gambit is fantastic at medium to somewhat higher ratings, then falls flat on its face if tried at the elite level. So you may win in this opening as you say, you may lose and him claiming white is ahead for the context of playing against some player is the same as saying white is winning - may be hard to agree with but also not so far-fetched. 

I mentioned this before on these forums. Maybe in a certain particular context "winning for white" means white will definitely win, even though it's still a terrible terminology. To say white is "winning" in a position just means white is ahead. I used to even have a handle called "Iamwinning", meaning I am ahead, not I have definitely won. Don't play dumb.   

Just play 6. ...Bb4. It isn't a refutation because it doesn't win by force but it did only take me 10 seconds to see it and it gives black the better game, because of better development. I can't believe the gambit would be played by strong players, because any half decent opponent will see that they don't need to work their way through any difficult position where they're only technically winning. All they need to do is play 6. ...Bb4 and they're slightly better..

Winning means on the way to a win or in the process of winning. "Better" is the word you're searching for, maybe.