What are some good (the gambit comes very early, the attacking is quick and direct) gambit defenses? I seek to adopt some surprises for quickplay tournaments. I seek some modicum of soundness. The Benko is not a good choice because the play isn't very open, and the Latvian is plain bad and not very attacking. I seek defenses that are gambits and are direct, do not allow many deviations that would allow an opponent to avoid it, and are not easily refuted. I give the Halloween gambit as a perfect example.
The ones I am considering:
Verus d4:
The Albin looks very good
The Budapest looks less good, but fun to play.
Versus e4:
Gambits arising after the Scandinavian
The Schliemann seems fun seeing as I am toying with 1...e5.
I'll look into the Traxler, but do you have anything that isn't so dependent on white making the certain moves? In QP it's all about springing your surprise first. I already play the TND anyway, so does anyone have a good book on the traxler?
Jan Pinksi wrote a good book on the Two Knights that has a very good Traxler section. Dan Heisman also did a CD on it. Unfortunately, I think most of the gambits for Black are quite bad. The Benko is the only one I would really recommend for tournament play. I think White can achieve a nice edge against both the Budapest and the Albin. The Latvian sucks big time, and so does the elephant.
Yes, which is why I avoided listing the elephant and latvian🙂
I'm not looking for suggestions for long tournament play, but for quick play, for example games in 30 or under. Gambits are much more effective then. Also, trust me as I won't be stupid and play them against experts. No on I play is going to know the refutation lines to the ones listed above.
With that in mind, could you recommend something, especially something versus e4? The ablin and buda will provide more than enough variety, but the gambit lines in the scandi, while good, don't seem like enough for me. So gambit defenses to e4 please 🙂
Also, how good are the two volumes of Nigel Davie's "Dirty Tricks" (google it) DVDs? Davies is a good author and I trust him to choose good lines, but I don't know what exactly they are.
Originally posted by pwnguin What are some good (the gambit comes very early, the attacking is quick and direct) gambit defenses? I seek to adopt some surprises for quickplay tournaments. I seek some modicum of soundness. The Benko is not a good choice because the play isn't very open, and the Latvian is plain bad and not very attacking. I seek defenses that are gambits and are direct, ...[text shortened]... e Schliemann seems fun seeing as I am toying with 1...e5.
Does anyone have anything to add?
The Schliemann (Janisch) is perfectly respectable at most levels. I've done quite well with it myself including a recent draw against a GM OTB. Maybe the best gambit against the Lopez is the Marshall, which I also play, but there's loads of theory, and most white players seem to avoid it, not that any of the anti-Marshall lines are particularly worrying for black.
Against 1.d4 the Benko (Volga) Gambit is postionally the soundest, though the Albin also has its merits. Some years ago I tried out the von Hennig-Schara Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4!?). I played it four times and lost all four despite obtaining a fine position each time! I guess I concluded it wasn't meant to be. The problem with most of these queen's pawn gambits for black is that quite a few boring b******s play 2.Nf3 and side-step them!
The problem with a gambit is that you have to be prepared to play the declined version or against the anti-whatever system, such as the anti-Marshall. Against the Benko there's also the somewhat annoying quick b6 push by white, giving back the gambit pawn and taking the sting out of black's setup.
And let's not forget the disappointment factor when your opponent declines, steering the game into quieter channels. "Oh no! Not that boring declined variation!". You worked so hard on the gambit part of the opening, but your opponent ruins everywthing by refusing it. 😀
You have to be ready for such a disappointment.
Good Gambit defenses?
13 Jul '07 01:121 edit
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