NCO gives 4.Bc4 and 4.Nc3, with the main line 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 Ng4 6.d4 d5 7.Bb3 Ne3 8.Bxe3 fxe3 9.0-0 Be6 10.Qd3 c6 11.Qxe3 +=.
At first sight 4.h4 doesn't seem very active, and it weakens the king side further. How did you come to the conclusion that it's the best move?
Edit: as far as I know, the KG's toughest theoretical test is 3...g5. That'll decide whether it's theoretically dead or not. Not that anybody playing Black knows all the theory, so practice is another story...
Yes, I know about 3. ... g5 - I'm saving that for later discussion. I found that 4. h4 is good in response to 3. ... Be7 specifically. This I concluded after seing how it deters the attacks on the king, and buys time to develop quen side pieces and keeping tempo, and allowing for an eventual queenside castle, or better yet none at all! (implying that white has mated black)
So you are proposing 4.Bc4 in response to 3. ... Be7 ? Ok, let me look this over and see what it looks like....
Ok, Scarblac - here is the situation I have in mind when considering 4. h4 :
Lets assume that we do 4. Bc4 like you said:
I've found myself cursing at that position several times in the past, or alternately: This second alternative is what I had previously chosen until I came up with 4. h4!? ...
What do you think?
tarius, In response to Bh4+ I'm sure you want to play Kf1. Playing g3 will simply allow too much space around your king and black's attacking chances will take too much of your attention to get your own attack going.
Yes I've shown this response in my sequence just above, but firstly - White loses the castling ability , and also, there is still major underdevlopment in the queenside - I feel that tempo is lost - wouldn't the proposed 4. h4 be better?
to the Bh4+ am on king move coz of the black bishop queen can't help mate as long as queen first in tale of the bishop so move the king to f1 and the other is a matter of knowledge or combat ,am playing kg once in a while ,butif i see the response of that be7 ,its all yours lock and load ready for hand to hand combat heheheh thank you ! i learn again a new one
Loomis is right - the usual (and 'best) response to 3...Be7 is 4. Bc4 Bh4+ 5. Kf1, although apparently 5. Ke2 is perfectly playable as well. Your g3 line is asking for disaster.
Yes I've shown this response in my sequence just above, but firstly - White loses the castling ability , and also, there is still major underdevlopment in the queenside - I feel that tempo is lost - wouldn't the proposed 4. h4 be better?
The thing is, white is still ahead on tempo, and has the open f-file. Black will have trouble taking any advantage of the king on f1, at least for the time being. After 5...Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. d4 Bg4 8. Bxf4, and White has a lot of attacking chances.
Hold on - there seems to be a misunderstanding here : the g3 line IS a disaster! That was the point! 5.Kf1 is the best continuation given the bishop check - agreed.
What is the intended issue is : Is it not better to avoid Bh4+ with 4. h4 ?
So far, no one has shown me evidence that my h4 line is faulty, nor have my played games in fact.
Anyone?
Tarius, Loomis is right. Moreover, in the position above after 4.Bc4 Bh4+, the better move is to again just step aside with your King. Hard to believe the right idea is to move your king and lose the right to castle, but your postion would be good. You might be worried at first, but after a few natural developing moves (Nc3, d4) you have the ability to start some very dangerous attacks and it should be your opponent that starts sweating.
Alterntively, if you really want some fireworks, look at the King's Gambit lines with Bc4 on move 3! In my opinion, more in the spirit of the King's Gambit.
Yes I've shown this response in my sequence just above, but firstly - White loses the castling ability , and also, there is still major underdevlopment in the queenside - I feel that tempo is lost - wouldn't the proposed 4. h4 be better?
The thing is, white is still ahead on tempo, and has the open f-file. Black will have trouble taking any advantage of the king on f1, at least for the time being. After 5...Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. d4 Bg4 8. Bxf4, and White has a lot of attacking chances.
valid and sustained point, as experience has attested to, however, again, I have yet to see a demonstration of how allowing 4. ... Bh4+ 5.Kf1 is superior to the 4. h4 line ...
I'm really trying to get in depth here and explore all the possibilities, that is why i started with this line...
Bit of a lag on that post. Sorry Tarius, not wanting to pile on. One way you can test the validy of h4 is to look at the master database. You can see it is played by some master level players, so its not all that bad. But black scores very well, much better than if white played Bc4. Not dispositive, but instructive of what the better line is.
thanks payback, I'll look into it.
and yes, thank you Ratkins - that is helpful, but I am hoping to discover some specific weakness of the h4 line that black can exploit. If there is no sureway about it, then that makes 1 less counter-attack line that I have to worry about when playing KG...
Tarius, the problem with 4. h4 is that it doesn't help you get your attack going. You've gambited a pawn and you need to play actively and agressively to follow it up. After 4. h4 Nf6 black is ahead in development and is ready to castle. White meanwhile has only one piece developed and is a ways off from generating an attack. Meanwhile, the white kingside will be too weak to castle on and it will be quite a while before he castles queenside.
The games you've played so far with 4. h4 (if you've won them) were decided by mistakes made later in the game and not by the first 4 moves. But that's the way most chess games are.
I found two interesting games where white tried h4 against a very good opponent. The first game didn't work so well, but you can see the second game Black lost in dramatic fashion. Kind of interesting.
Poor tarius, trying to have a discussion about a specific variation, and everyone keeps talking about a different one. 
Not being a king's gambit player myself, I can't add much to the discussion. I do find these threads interesting, though, in that what everyone seems to think are the most testing lines are the ones I never like in practice for myself (I usually play the Modern Variation, 3...d5).
tarius78 - Is this diagram correct?
How can Black capitalize on this? (what are the next 4-5 best moves for each player?)
The position shown is the Cunningham Gambit, followed by 4. h4 with Black on the move?.
Kornchnoi and Zak in their book 'King's Gambit' found this playable, but lacking for Black.
Mainline responses:
4. Bc4
4. Nc3
4. Be2
Their conclusion was that 4. Nc3 was strongest response. A lot of analysis since then, but still valid.
4. h4?
In my opinion 4.h4 is a waste of time. You can't waste time, you've sacrificed a pawn, and it's up to you to show variations where you get enough compensation. If you want normal positions, castled king, quiet moves etc, try 2.Nf3 :-)
After 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Bh4+ 5.Kf1 White's king is actually quite safe, and you have an extra piece out.
As recently discussed in other posts, I want to explore this question.
There are several scenarios, so let's just take it one and a time.
Let's start with this version of the KG accepted line:
I have found through much trial and error that 4.h4 is the best response to this position. The 3.... Be7 used to be my greatest nemesis to my KG game until I flushed out the h4 lines.Comments on this?