Grob

Weirdly, The Tactical Grob, Basman's book 'the Killer Grob' and Grob's own book 'Grob's Angriff' all show completely different sides of the opening. The resulting positions are barely comparable.

The Tactical Grob is worth a look for inspiration. Shows the main 'hustler' lines at least. Very light on the text though. If you have a look around the web you can find it compiled as a free ebook. You'd need the Chessbase reader to use it. Not sure if that's free or not.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Here is how you handle the Grob!

Game 5366130

Black total screws up the game by missing this move:

9. BxQ
The rest becomes academic after that.
I do not think much of this solution.

Still no closer to working out whether this is a sound opening, but it certainly makes for interesting games 🙂
Game 8796877

Originally posted by morgski
Still no closer to working out whether this is a sound opening, but it certainly makes for interesting games 🙂
Game 8796877

[pgn]1. g4 e5 2. Bf1g2 d5 3. c4 c6 4. Qd1b3 Ng8e7 5. cxd5 Ne7xd5 6. Nb1c3 Nd5xc3 7. dxc3 Bf8c5 8. Ng1f3 Nb8d7 9. O-O O-O 10. Rf1d1 Rf8e8 11. Nf3g5 Qd8f6 12. Ng5e4 Qf6g6 13. Rd1xd7 {first chance to gain material} Bc8xd7 14. Ne ...[text shortened]... 6 Qg2f3 23. Ke2e1 Qf3h1 {and black has a perpetual} 24. Ke1e2 {and so it ended...} 1/2-1/2[/pgn]

Really? The answer is, as far as openings go, it's unsound. Sure, it's not an instant 0-1 game but neither is any first move..

It creates an instant disadvantage for the white player, doesn't do much to control the center, and creates a huge long term weakness on your kingside where most people would like to castle.

I hope that you're simply using this opening because of boredom instead of hoping to find that it's actually devastatingly strong for white.

Originally posted by UnderPromote
Really? The answer is, as far as openings go, it's unsound. Sure, it's not an instant 0-1 game but neither is any first move..

It creates an instant disadvantage for the white player, doesn't do much to control the center, and creates a huge long term weakness on your kingside where most people would like to castle.

I hope that you're simply usi ...[text shortened]... use of boredom instead of hoping to find that it's actually devastatingly strong for white.

Hi underpromote

Looking at it as an opening it appears unsound with the lack of centre control and negates effective O-O castling... but it does something people are not expecting. Moreover, the more I play it the more I think there is method in the madness... It kinda assumes that the King has already castled and that the d, e, and f pawns are the first line of defence (and should therefore be moved with caution like you would the f, g, and h pawns after castling). The attacks then come from the flanks, dominantly by the bishops and knights. 1.g4 d5 2.c4 has had several people stopping to try and work out what the catch is (two whole pawns to be taken!?), then get mightily worried about their a-Rook after Bg2 and Qb3 a few moves later. If someone gets used to this type of play, I can see it being a significant advantage over someone who is used to playing the KID, Sicilian or A.N.other mainline opening.

So, in summary, I agree that it should be unsound, it offends my chess sensibilities, but my stats so far have been P 6, W 4 D 2 L 0 since I began this mini-experiment (not through boredom, I mainly learn by trial and error so thought I´d test it personally rather than read deeply into the theory). If someone would like to give me a schooling as black vs the Grob, please feel free to challenge me and show me how 😉