Annotated chess game

3...d5 is often preferred for Black, looking at this position it seems the obvious choice  

Yeah 3...d5 is best here, easy equality. 3...d6 is playable but not as good as 3...d5

Hard to say what's "best" as there are so many different lines, many of them wild, but I still prefer the traditional 3... g5. In response to the Fischer defence 4. d4 is more usual than 4. Bc4.

I still think the Fisher Defense offers Black some winning chances at less risk.

My favorite was always Ficher's Defence, as played here: 3...d6. Though not such an "easy equality" perhaps than 3...d5, it does allow White plenty of opportunity to overreach himself by an over-committal attack. Possible lines are [A] 4.Bc4!? h6 5.d4 g5; or [B]4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng1 Qf6, which is OK for Black. Fischer always thought the King's Gambit was busted after his 3...d6, but that has been proved too sanguine a view.

3 ... d5 often leads to an exchange of queens and an inferior endgame for Black. If Black wants to win he should try and hold on to the pawn. After 3...d5 Black's best chances are attacking on the kingside. 3... g5 is probably Black best chance for a win, but he needs to know a lot of theory. When I played the Kings gambit I liked nothing better than playing against the Fischer Defense I played the 1 e4 e5 2 f4 ef 3 d4 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ng1 variation. The variation that caused me to give up the Kings Gambit was the Berlin Defense to the Kieseritzky Gambit.

And gains a perfect Classical developed centre.

Fischer's original idea was that 3... d6 takes e5 away from the knight, making 4... g5 even better than 3... g5. The game continuation is inconsistent. Also, Black's knight is misplaced, and should be on c6; it need not fear the pawn advance d5?? blocking the bishop and giving the knight the fine square e5.

...Nd7 and ...Bg4 are not the best way to play this defense.

It seems the Black knight is placed OK at d7, where it can attack the c4-bishop by ...Nb6, or bolster the defensive knight at f6.

Variations with ...g5 tend to be very exciting, as I am sure we will soon see.

This is actually not a bad move at all. White King has castled here so this pawn movement can be offensive in the long term and right now it holds the pawn and restricts Bc1.

Another point is that now White has castled, the usual move h4 to disrupt the pawn is easily met by ...h6. With the rook on h1 this would not be possible: hxg5 hxg5?? Rxh8

Seems logical.

? This does not look good... I don't think White has enough power in the center due to the pin on Nf3. I would probably play 7.c3 with 8.Qb3 or even better 7.Qd3 with the possibility 8.Qb3 but also getting out of the pin at the same time. White is good here but has no obvious advantage yet.

7 e5?! is very risky. Black gains the advantage with correct play.

? Obvious mistake from Black... all he needed to do is play 9...Qe7 and 10...0-0-0 and White is pretty much busted - for example 9...Qe7; 10.Nc3, 0-0-0; 11.Nd5, Qe8 and now Black can do anything he wants: 1) at any point take on f3 and probably on e5; 2) develop Nh6 -> Nf5; 3) play Nb6 etc.; White's problem is that his pieces are not actually doing anything together, Bc1 can't do much and his position is overextended due to that optimistic 7.e5. To compensate for all that he is 1 pawn down  

Bxf3? offers White tactical chances. White's e5 pawn is totally lost, and the bishop can't be driven away, so development was in order instead.

I don't know that White would have been busted after 9...Qe7, 10...0-0-0, but Black would have much the better of the game at that point. Of the mutual attacks on opposite castled kings, Black would have a sizeable head start.

?? Better is simple 10.Qf3, Ne5; 11.Re1 and White has some pressure for the 2 pawns.

Spectacular but not truly sound.

Or maybe 10.Qf3 Ne5 11.Qxb7, and White doesn't seem to be doing too badly, actually! 9...Bxf3 was certainly a mistake. In general principles it would have been better to have maintained the pin as long as it remained convenient to Black and inconvenient to White. The exchange on f3 certainly could have waited.

If I were in an imaginative mood I might try to draw Black's king further out with 11.e6+.

11.e6 does not really change that much here, since Black King has enough space to move around and White does not have the light Bishop any more.

Here Black could have tried 12...Ng6. True White gets some compensation after for instance Bxf4, PXB but Black should hold.

I agree but this is OK also

Paradoxically, 12...Ke6 seems to be the safest, even though the king strays towards the centre.

Nice followup.

Removes any more protective pawns from the king. It's time for White to bring the rooks in.

White has to play like this now - go for the jugular and hope for the best! But objectively Black has too many pieces around the King and White attacks with very small force.

True, White has to throw everything into the attack to have any chance at all. Yet this move deserves a (!) as offering the best - albeit slender - chance for White. Black dare not take the bishop (though that would have been less bad than what he did play!) E.g. 13...gxf4 14.Qxe5+ Nf6 15.Qg5+ Kf7 16.Qxc5 +/=.

So you "sac" a bishop to get a pawn, a knight, & a bishop. Please define sac. I think you took an unprotected pawn.

?? Horrible blunder from Black. Unfortunately for White, prosaic 13...Nf7 holds the g5 pawn and the extra piece for Black. It is not pretty but it works  

I think I would have moved Nf6. This puts pressure on his queen. If he takes the pawn with bisop then you swap queens and he only gains a pawn on you. If he takes pawn with queen then move your other knight g6. This will open up the queen and you can slide the h8 rook out as well. For you to get any type of solid attack you'd have to spend a move to get your knight out of the way so as to move the rook along the 1 profile. That one move you spend...he can slid his rook out or move his queen to protect better around the king. I still think he could have gotten out of this...but he made a terrible move with Qe8.

Much simpler is 14.Be5 and Black resigns on the spot  

Or Black could be a gentleman and let White checkmate: 14... Qxe5 15. Rf7#

The mate isn't forced, but White gets an overwhelming position after 14.Bxe5+ Nf6 15.Qxg5+ Qg6 16.Bxf6+ Kg8 17.Qxc5, with two whole extra pieces (and more to come), an extra pawn, and a raging attack. As indicated by marinvukusic, Black would, chances are, have jacked it in at once.

Well, you could. After exchanging, you would have a 2-pawn lead going into a relatively easy endgame.

Actually only 1 pawn lead and Black can fight for the draw. This is the best move here, there is no need to let Black exchange Queens so easily.

After this, Black goes rapidly downhill. But even with better defence, Black's game was too far gone to be saved.

11. ... h5 seems to slow you down. Then black overwhelms the lonely e-pawn and remains ahead in material. Of course, that was just a quick glance. Maybe white has a good refutation of that.

Nicely played. I think Black was stuck after 14.Qxg5+.

Hmmm... I am sorry to say that this was played rather badly from both players. It is good that you have a vision of what you want to do, but King's gambit is a difficult opening and can easily lead to bad positions for White. The main issue is that most people know about 3...d5 and that spoils all the fun. I suggest you study the opening a lot more if you want to play it with success - especially study the positions including g5 by Black, you did not assess that move correctly in this case. I also recommend tactical exercises, you should have never missed that 14.Be5.

18 Nc3 might be an improvement, gets White's reserves into the attack.

From a certain point of view, marinvukusic is right about the quality of play, but perhaps put it too bluntly. Black had played quite accurately and well up until the slip at move 9 that gave away his slight advantage. The losing blunder was 13...Qe8??, though he deserves some credit for realising 13...gxf4? led to a bad game for Black. Having seen the one, maybe he played the next thing that came to mind without further investigation? White played in the manner that a King's Gambit player has to play, though the execution wanted precision: over-refined at one point (10.Bxf7+?) and too crude at another (14.Qxg5+). Having said that White generally found out the right KIND of moves that the gambiteer looks for. There's scope for improvement, sure, but also something solid to work on.