Your opinions on the King's Gambit

NOTE: I usually play Rapid (Rated 1200), so it might be different in Blitz

I love the Kings gambit.

For several reasons.

It's not like, the most common opening. It's aggressive, it defends the King side knight when you castle there, so those annoying pins that destroy your fortress aren't as effective. And sometimes even, you can gain the whole centre. It's harder to get back-ranked, and your rooks can get into the attack (Like this game over here).

For the past few months, I've considered it as an underrated, powerful opening (Even though you sacrifice your king side pawn). 

So I would like your opinions on the King's Gambit. Any will do 

EDIT: I don't think my opponent played the best moves

I also love the King's Gambit. It's my favorite opening to play as White, and I play it at all time controls, both online and in over-the-board tournament games. It's not a common opening, so a lot of people aren't used to playing against it. That can be a huge advantage. How great is it when you're super familiar with an opening and your opponent is on shaky ground from the start? There are many lines in the King's Gambit that I think make Black uneasy: sacrifices, crazy tactics, very aggressive play. It seems like Black often doesn't know what to do, and they panic and make blunders.

Here are two of my recent games from here on chess.com. These were both 30 minute rapid games.

In this first game, I don't claim any credit for these clever moves. This is known stuff, and I was just following lines that I'd seen before up until about move 10. But still very fun to play. This is the kind of game that makes King's Gambit players very happy.

This second game is less spectacular, but a perfect example of why I like the King's Gambit. Black has no idea what to do, and is completely on the defensive for the whole game. This kind of reaction from Black seems fairly common, at least at my amateur level of play. 

I've been a king's gambit player all my life, although I find it doesn't perform super well against the d6-g5-h6-Bb7 setup.

Nice games! I find the King's Gambit very annoying as Black, but I'm not brave enough to play it as Black.

Garbage

A bad choice at high levels. -- Sure Spassky played it, but it's not a mistake that for many decades zero top players use it.

A poor practical choice at levels lower than that (various titled levels). -- There are too many good options for black, both equalizing and messy. Your time is diluted across these many options, plus a heavy investment into a while opening should secure you more winning chances.

An acceptable choice at club levels. -- Players below 2000 are unlikely to be well prepared, and unlikely to play "boring" lines e.g. early d5s, so you'll probably get the type of game you were hoping for.

I actually gave that up as black after facing several players booked past move 15 who would get tremendously messy positions that for all practical purposes at least equalized.

Switched to 2...Bc5 which allows me to put white under pressure with intuitive moves and requires very little theoretical upkeep.

Your argument is that at the top level you can research whether your opponent plays badly against the KG, and if so, use it against them?

Oh, but in my post I defined high level as professional top GMs so...

I said it wasn't so bad at our level.

*White, lol.*

@Jasonosaurus - nah I've never tried that. Thanks for the idea!

Its a nice surprise weapon to have but for my main opening I prefer something more flexible like the four knights or Italian.

It is a REALLY fun to play and very effective from low intermediate to mid advanced. Here is a crazy KG game: 

OOOOOOPS WRONG GAME

    The King's Gambit is perfectly playable at all levels. Most lower-rated players have little knowledge of this rarely-used opening and often get caught flatfooted. And at the highest level, Spassky, even after it was widely known that he occasionally employed it, managed a perfect record with, defeating such players as Seirawan, Bronstein, Karpov and Fischer.

     Even if your opponent knows what they are doing, it just means that you have a theoretically smaller chance of obtaining an advantage compared to some other openings, but if you like that type of game, go for it.

Would it be effective at my rating? Just wondering because I've had people attempt the gambit on me, but it's always failed.