The Staunton Gambit is a slightly unsound way to counter the Dutch, but it immediately puts pressure on black and usually creates positions in which white has an easier time finding moves.
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The Dutch Defense is a very powerful weapon to add to your repertoire. It’s an opening system rather than an opening with an exact move order, and it can be reached via many different moves, and played against many different openings white chooses.
It can be employed against the Reti, English, and even Nimzo-Larsen, but the main line Dutch is played against d4.
The idea behind the Dutch is to challenge the center straight away by playing f5, thus taking control of the e4 square, and making it very hard for white to expand in the center. The downside of the move f5 is that it weakens the black king in more ways than one. It weakens the seventh rank, and both diagonals looking at f7.
Both sides have plenty of options at their disposal after the starting moves 1.d4 f5. White could choose to enter the main lines, but he could also play the London system (with Bf4), the Raphael variation (with Nc3), the aggressive Staunton Gambit (with e4, giving up a pawn), or the Hopton attack (Bg5). The normal way for white to play, though, is with c4, g3 and Bg3.
Against these main setups for white black can choose between three different systems withing the Dutch defense; the Leningrad Dutch, the Classical Dutch, and the Stonewall Dutch. Along with those three, though, white has the option of going into various early deviations which could get black out of his comfort zone.
One of these is the Staunton Gambit, an immediate clearance of the f5 pawn which forces black to make a concession – relinquishing his f5 pawn and his central control in exchange for a pawn.
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