Polish Gambit: Win The Rook On Move 5

The Polish Gambit is a relatively unknown yet extremely dubious gambit played by black that, if white gets greedy, black can practically end the game by taking white’s rook on just the 5th move.

Oddly enough, for how dubious and effective this gambit can be, it’s not in the chess.com database. In fact, a Google search on “Polish Gambit” turns up minimal information on it.

Even more enticing for black to play this gambit is that white’s response moves are entirely natural, leaving nothing truly “odd” to be seen by white until it’s too late.

Let’s take a look at the Polish Gambit opening sequence below:

From this position, it seems like black needlessly gave away a pawn to simply develop their bishop on b7. In response to this, the most natural and actually book move is for white to play Nc3, simply continuing development whilst defending the e4 pawn.

The next move by black is where the gambit is played. Playing f5, baiting white to get greedy and take yet another free pawn is what allows black to deliver the crushing blow; 

From here, white can do absolutely nothing to stop both his pawn and rook being taken. Black has won back a pawn and will win white’s rook, all for the cost of just one pawn.

This is a fun gambit to play, and it’s interesting there’s such a lack of information and data on the Polish Gambit online. The gambit does depend on white’s greed, as if they don’t take f5, then you can’t strike with the bishop. However, it does still provide an interesting setup similar to the Lemming Defense, something I’ve been studying in detail, and allows black to have a direct line of attack on the short castle.

Perhaps a Lemming Defense: Polish Gambit could be in the works? Let’s test out a rough draft: