Bird's debut: Dutch motives for whites. What is a gambit in chess: Queen's Gambit, Royal, Northern, Volga Gambit from chess
Danish Gambit, better known as "Northern Gambit" - is a chess strategy in which the white chess player sacrifices one or two pawns to gain an advantage in the game .
This strategy is classified as an open-ended strategy.
It should be noted that a player cannot always achieve the desired success using the Danish Gambit. Thus, the Dane, thanks to whom this chess strategy got its name, Martin Frome, at a tournament in Paris, playing mainly white chess and using a game strategy called the Danish Gambit, won only one game out of four.
Despite this, the gambit was popular in the 19th century. It was used by such famous masters as Marshall, Mises and Blackburn.
At the beginning of the next century, the gambit was studied in detail, and successful strategies for playing for black emerged. As a result, interest in the Danish Gambit strategy was gradually lost.
History of the Danish Gambit.
The idea of the gambit was inspired by the London-Edinburgh correspondence game, famous in 1824. Since the game's inception, the variations in the development of events have been extremely confusing. One of the proponents of the Danish Gambit was the Swede Hans Linden, who regularly used the strategy in the second half of the 19th century. With this gambit, Linden beat the then world chess champion Wilhelm Steinitz in 1824.
There is an assumption that Martin From learned about the gambit when he met Hans Linden in Paris.
It is also worth noting that the idea of building a strategy around sacrificing one of the pawns in the Danish Gambit is not new. The same idea was used earlier in Goering's gambit.
Famous chess players are associated with the Danish Gambit as follows:
- Paul Morphy learned about it during a chess match with Alexander Meek at the first US Chess Congress;
- Alexander Alekhine used some gambit combinations exclusively at meetings of little importance.
The names “Nordic” or “Danish” gambit are not used in Denmark itself; there the gambit is called “Nordic”.
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Active attack move f2-f4 used in many openings. Do they play f4 on the first move? Not so often, but it happens. And this is what Bird's debut is called.
What kind of debut is this?
So, Bird's Opening begins with a pawn move f:
Named after an Englishman Henry Bird, chess master of the 19th century.
In fact, in Bird's debut it is difficult to find any original content unique to this debut.
In almost all variants, this debut immediately changes color, like a chameleon , - moving into constructions characteristic of other openings.
With approximate equality. Svidler – Yakovenko , Kazan, 2014
The chances are equal. Nakamura – Karjakin , Moscow, 2010
2.Sicilian with movef4
This results in a rare variation of the Sicilian Defense, in which Black usually equalizes the chances, often sacrificing a pawn.
For example:
With an advantage for Black. Ivanchuk-Giri, 2013
3. Frome Gambit
1…e5
Black intends to sacrifice a pawn after 2.fe d6
Most often, White moves earlier to move 2.е4.
Accepting a sacrifice is also possible, but gives Black the initiative, which more than compensates for the pawn.
For example:
Black is better. Eliskazes – Hollande , 1932
With an advantage for Black. Chekhover – I. Rabinovich . 1934
However, if you don’t mind suffering, you can try to somehow strengthen White’s play. It is possible that this is possible.
Summary:
The most common idea for using the Bird opening is the desire to play the Dutch Defense in the first hand.
It is this idea that is implemented in the games of strong grandmasters who occasionally use the move 1.f4: Nakamura, Ivanchuk, Aronyan, Nepomniachtchi, Svidle R. Most often they play the Leningrad system with a change of color, in rapid chess and blitz.
When playing Bird's opening, it is important to keep in mind Black's ability to respond 1…e5. And then you will either have to go all out in the Frome Gambit, accepting the pawn sacrifice, or move on to the King's Gambit by moving 2.е4.
Common mistakes and pitfalls
Let me remind you that when playing 1.f4, White has the opportunity to get a “stupid” mate on 2 go:
It can be more “advanced”:
That is, getting checkmate with a bishop)
And White loses. Black used a move order that can be called Frome's delayed gambit .
Move 4.g3 error. Black has a dangerous initiative; there is no way to counter the threat h4.
White has a decisive advantage. Lasker–Bauer, 1889
Black played as if with himself, not noticing White's obvious preparations for an attack. For example, it was stronger 13…Ne4 or 14…d4, thwarting White's intentions.
Approximate games
Bird - Lasker, Newcastle, 1892, 0:1
Aronian - Topalov , Monte Carlo, 2006, 1:0
Bocharov - Morozevich , St. Petersburg, 2014, 0:1
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American chess player Paul Morphy was the first to recognize the dominant role of the initial development of pieces in the process of making the opening and the subsequent occupation of the central part of the field.
It was Morphy who admitted that at the beginning of a game, the most important thing is the tempo, and not the price of the pieces. It became possible to win the opening by sacrificing some part of your strength.
Gambit is one of the general names of the opening. It implies that one of the opponents is ready to give up a pawn or even a more significant representative of his “army” in order to occupy the central part of the board.
There are currently three types of gambit:
- accepted (a sacrifice of a piece or pawn is considered accepted);
- rejected (loss of piece rejected);
- countergambit (instead of agreeing to your sacrifice, the opponent himself gives up a piece).
In Paul Morphy's time, the gambit made the game of chess more interesting. The moves in the royal version could be calculated up to order 25! Only a coward could refuse to accept the gambit; it was even considered tactless.
With every decade chess game improved and old principles gave way to new trends. So the closing version of the gambit becomes more applicable.
Queen's Gambit
For example, the queen variation, when the opponent, playing white, is ready to give up a pawn and thus occupy the central part of the board. You can fail to follow your opponent's lead and end up with the Queen's Gambit Declined.
The Gambit is considered to be one of the most famous openings at the moment. Its main meaning is to gradually capture the center of the field. However, most often the course of the game is somewhat slow or even imposing.
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This makes chess a more dynamic game. This version of the development of the game appeared quite a long time ago, but gained wide popularity only in the 19th century, when the positional principles of combat were precisely formulated. You can find a video with the Queen's Gambit and a description of all possible traps at the link.
Queen's Gambit
The second option for the development of events on the field could be the King's Gambit in chess . This arrangement can lead to interesting combinations and make the game unforgettable.
In the case of the King's Gambit, a pawn has to be sacrificed in order to create a special zone in the center on e4 and d4.
If the player in charge of the black pieces does not figure out the opponent's tactics in time, then the opponent can organize an excellent and effective attack. True, today a whole list of possible answers for such a situation has already been collected. In connection with this, such a gambit has become a rarity in professional competitions.
There are two types of developments - accepted and rejected gambits. If you have an accepted one in your party, then the victim becomes a knight or bishop. You can also refuse a gambit by offering a pawn on your side, then you get a counter-gambit.
There is no longer a single possible refutation here. This idea appeared more than a century ago and was based on the fact that chess was not always held in high esteem. Some boldly included poor awareness and lack of romanticism here.
Northern Gambit
The concept of gambit was developed in the mid-19th century by a chess player from Denmark. In this regard, the first name of this maneuver was the Danish Gambit. Very little time passed and it received the name Northern Gambit. In those days, chess players most often used the following set of moves: e4, e5, d4, ed, c3, dc, c4. Main feature This maneuver was considered to be a desire to maintain a good pace of play.
Volzhsky Gambit
The Volga Gambit in chess became famous due to the formation of a centralized attack on the queen's flank. Most often, the enemy pieces advanced vertically, and the bishop protected them. This variation was proposed by chess players from the city of Samara back in 1946.
In the USA, this version of the opening was named after Benko, the famous American chess player. However, this grandmaster became known as a chess player only two years after the release of the Samara variation of the gambit.
Evans Gambit
The Evans Gambit is named after the Englishman Davis Evans, who lived in the 19th century. This type of game development gained particular popularity in the mid-19th century. Among the greatest admirers of this maneuver are Morphy, Andersen and Chigorin. These grandmasters masterfully used the gambit in many games. It was this combination that Andersen used in 1852 in Germany in the well-known “unfading game” against Dufresne. However, very soon Lasker found an excellent way to protect the black pieces and this opening option practically disappeared from general practice. But chess does not stand still, it is constantly evolving, and today the Evans gambit, supplemented by new techniques, is again used in high level. This technique is very popular among chess players such as Kramnik, Timman, Kasparov and Nunn.
Goering Karl, born in 1841, worked as a professor and loved to play chess. Goering played in tournaments quite rarely, but it was he who developed the attacking actions in the Evans gambit. In addition, he created an independent gambit, known as the Scottish one.
Budapest Gambit
In the competition between Maroczy and Adler, spectators saw for the first time the Budapest Gambit, which very soon was studied in detail by chess players from Hungary - Baras, Breuer and Abonyi. The new variation gained wide popularity among chess players, but already in 1925 Alekhine won 2 victories and deleted this gambit from chess practice for a long time.
In today's practice, the Budapest variation is periodically used by chess players, but it is considered quite risky and requires a lot of luck, and therefore grandmasters use it extremely rarely.
Blumenfeld Gambit
The Blumenfeld Gambit was invented by a Muscovite in the 20th century and is based on the principle of positioning, as a result of which you receive a central part in return for a pawn playing field. It is on the basis of this maneuver that the Volga Gambit will soon be created, which will become more widespread and popular. However, the Blumenfeld maneuver was repeatedly used by Vaganyan and Alekhine in chess games. Today it is used quite rarely, especially at a high level.
It is based on the principle that the player gives up a black pawn on the queen's flank and thus tries to capture the central part of the board. In current chess practice, White will most likely refuse to accept the pawn sacrifice and will go Cg5 or Kc3.
English Gambit
In the early seventies, a gambit with the same name - English - became widespread in England.
Here a bet is made on a pawn, the sacrifice of which helps to achieve the necessary gap and move the king's piece from the danger zone. At the same time, the player with white pieces tries not to give up his pawn on d5 to the opponent and therefore the tempo of the game decreases and the flexibility of the attack is lost.
Albina's counter-gambit
The opening, known as the Albin Counter Gambit, is part of a closed opening and has the following combination: d2,d4,d7,d5,c2,c4,e7,e5. Albin first used this move in 1883 in a game with Lasker. As a result of losing a pawn, the black team receives an active attack. Very soon, players from other countries were able to develop high-quality wrestling combinations for the white team, so this combination is rarely used anymore. However, experts note that the maneuver has not been fully studied and there are still loopholes.
We tried to collect all the gambit options, but if you have any additions, write in the comments or become the authors of our site.
