The strength of Smith-Morra gambit

Question

I am a beginning player in chess.(~1300 on chess.com/blitz: 5 and 10 minutes) And I mostly like to attack and favor fully open positions to closed and defensive. In response to e4, when the opponent plays c5, I don't have much options left. I don't like nf3, d4 too much. So, I have to resort to d4 and the Smith-Morra gambit. And, I really like this opening. However, this opening is not famous among top chess players and I wonder why. Please explain the merits and demerits of this opening apart from the early loss of a pawn to white.
Further information about openings I like and I'm comfortable with: Scotch Gambit, King's gambit. Please explain in simple terms and don't use terminology related to chess theory as I'm not familiar with those. I only play chess on chess.com and sometimes practice a few puzzles.

Answer 1

Merits for white:

• easy and quick development
• attacking chances, particularly against f7 (with a bishop on c4) and on the open c and d files (after putting rooks on c1 and d1
• potentially (depends on the opponent) playing off-beat openings like this can avoid theory/preparation of the opponent

Demerits for white:

• you lost a pawn
• if black plays properly there is no danger from the white attack
• black is not forced to accept the gambit (does not have to take the pawn on c3). There are basically two ways to decline it: (1) 3.... d3, which can be annoying for a Morra-Gambit player because now you don't get as nice squares for the pieces (knight cannot go to c3 and after capturing on d3 the bishop is blocked by the e4 pawn). (2) 3...Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 which is the Alapin variation and a bit dry/boring (for me playing this with black), so also not what somebody looking for a wild game wants.

If you look at regular Sicilian lines, in many you get very nice open tactical positions with lots of attacking potential and you are not a pawn down.

Why is it not popular at the highest level?

Simply because after all, if black plays correctly (as grandmasters tend to do most of the time), white ends up just a pawn down with no compensation for the pawn.

This does not mean that you have to give up playing the Smith-Morra if you like it. At your level I am sure you can have fun with it as black will often not play perfectly. However as you improve towards Elo 2000 or so, you might want to look at more normal openings.

Answer 2

If you like the Morra gambit, then there is no reason not to play it. It indeed leads to open positions where white has a lead in development. Moreover, black players are typically more familiar with the main lines than the Morra, while white's initiative can be quite dangerous.

Profound analyses can be found in Mayhem in the Morra!, written by IM Marc Esserman in 2012. The forewords in the sample pages are interesting and fun to read.

The theoretical status of the Morra is that black is fine: white has enough compensation for the pawn, but nothing more. White has better chances for an advantage in the main lines after 2.Nf3 and 3.d4. Therefore, the Morra gambit is not seen very often at the top level.

Answer 3

I believe the main reason it isn't popular at high level is that there are so many viable defences against it, on top of a good practical way for black to avoid it completely. It's just not practical.

Most players will reply 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Nf6 (and then 4.e5 Nd5), transposing to the most popular reply to 2.c3, 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.c3 cxd4 5.cxd4 et cetera. Since they have to study that anyway (2.c3 is much more popular than 2.d4), they get this reply to the Morra "for free" and don't have to do more work.

But White playing the Morra has to know how to reply to all sorts of Morra defences, many of which are good. Just for the case that someone did put in the work and prepared one of them in detail.

IM Esserman really wants to play this line, and he did put in all that work. His book had great reviews and he had many brilliant wins over strong players. Maybe he is right and there is in fact nothing wrong with the line in a chess sense.

But then the practical implication is still that White has to do a lot of work, and black can just play 3...Nf6 to transpose to a line he already needs to know. That's not what strong players are looking for.

Answer 4

I played Morra at 1500- level, and Morra is very fun to play. I have big lead in development and opponent will make obvious tactical mistakes for me to take advantage of.

Now I'm at 1800-2000 level and I stop playing Morra. The reason is that at this level, opponents book up to some extent. They won't make obvious tactical mistakes and my understanding in Morra and tactical skill isn't enough to carry out the initiative successfully. In many Morra variations, if your opponent isn't very well booked up, you'll probably have one shot at Nd5 sac, you miss it and they'll develop properly and you are just down a pawn. On the other hand, even if you make the right sac, it still requires lots of tactical skill to make it winning.

I believe at 2000+, players will have better understanding of initiative and much better tactical skill. Then opponents' less obvious tactical error is punished properly and Morra becomes dangerous again.

At world top level, the reason that Morra disappeared is because you can't surprise you opponent anymore. Every GM game is in a database and your opponent can check your opening repertoire and prepare accordingly.

In any case, if you play Morra, don't fall into the Siberian trap (the second time).

Answer 5

A gambit is the giving up of material for time, generally a pawn in the opening. Accordingly, you must maximize your use of the time advantage before your opponent catches up, when your pawn shortage will become a long-term deficit. Since these types of games such as the Smith-Morra and the other gambits you have mentioned become tactical very quickly and your opponent won't have time to analyze all the variations with probable resulting inaccuracies, they would seem to be particularly well suited to quick play. In slower games, your opponent would be able to avoid these tactical pitfalls and emerge into an ultimately winning position after completing his development.