Benko Gambit

Anyone know much about an opening called Benko Gambit? Kid at work played it against me during lunch. Is it sound? Must be a book or two about it. Let me know. Thanks.

I know a little! My friends dad is a NM and he was told by a GM that the Benko is the only true sound gambit, although that sounds a bit rash. Black gets alot of queenside pressure and a great dark squared bishop. In alot of lines white just gives the pawn back to black! 😀

YES but the evans gambit is another true gambit and in the smith mora my understandig is you give up the d pawn and possibly the c .pawn . there are books on the benko try asking at your local book store as a first stop.

I checked yahoo and found quite a bit of info. Am looking into a couple of books. Alot to learn! Thanks!

1.d4 Nf6
2.c4 c5
3.d5 b5
4.cxb5 a6
5.bxa6 Bxa6.

I've played it a few times - it's particularly nice against computers, which often underestimate the strength of the black position. Someone (Bronstein?) wrote that it's such a simple opening - you just give up a pawn and then get a really good game.

The only problem I see from a practical standpoint is that white has to play along, and it's not that hard to avoid it:
http://www.uschess.org/news/uschamp98/prelimA5/dgm1-0201.html

Also, a lot of us amateur d4 players are aiming for a Colle setup instead of c4, so you're not going to get to play it against them either...

If I were you I'd also look at Korchnoi's games against the Benko - he never lost against it (10 wins, 4 draws) until 1995 - (2-2 since then).
You can look them up using www.chessgames.com 's search function.

This Korchnoi-Topalov game is really interesting - Topalov shows you can win even with the queens off:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1143913

So go for it, but you won't get to play it every time your opponent plays d4.

lloydk- thanks for the info, i checked out chessgames.com- WOW!!