A Gambit for the Quick and the Alert
Welcome to the magical world of the Budapest Gambit! The general idea of this book is to analyse many of the aspects of this fabulous opening: its history, statistics, variations, resources, middlegames, endings and, last but not least, its players.
I have tried to create a dynamic book that will help discover the secrets and the mysterious spirit of a complex opening. In each thematic introduction, and within each annotated game of the book, readers will find much useful strategic and tactical advice and instructions for both colours. The analyses of the carefully chosen games show possible improvements in lines that have not been deeply explored yet.
When I began to my study of this subject, I had not hoped that my discoveries would be so interesting. Like many other players, I had been quite sceptical about the Budapest Gambit. But as I went on, I realized that my initial suspicions were not justified. What's more, this gambit can surprise any player who is not sufficiently prepared, even at the highest level.
I hope this book will serve as a support to the fans of the Budapest Gambit. Taking advantage of this moment, I would like to congratulate all chess players with a combative and romantic style. I hope that the idea of this gambit stays alive, and that it will continue to be used to fight players with a defensive style who never dare to undertake combinations.
I would like to thank the New In Chess team for their help in publishing this project, keeping a creative and friendly atmosphere throughout the process. And thanks above all to my daughter Liudmila and my wife Tatiana for helping me finish this work successfully.
The game begins, gentlemen - good luck!
Greetings to all!
Grandmaster Viktor Moskalenko, Barcelona 2007
Introduction
Prologue: History and Origins (1896-2007)
At the beginning of the 20th century, openings with the queen's pawn offered solid possibilities of playing a strategic game without many complications. In those times most openings did not have much interesting depth. The most common opening was the Queen's Gambit. Black players were in need of something more attractive.
The first game with the Budapest Gambit appears to have been Adler-Maroczy (see Chapter Three, Game 80), Budapest 1896. In 1916 Stephan Abonyi developed die ideas behind 2...e5, together with his compatriots Zsigmond Barasz and Gyula Breyer, who played it against the Dutch surgeon Johannes Esser in a small tournament in Budapest.
Protagonists and Heroes
Akiba Rubinstein became the first grandmaster in history to face the Budapest Gambit. In a strong double round robin tournament in the city of Berlin in April 1918, Milan Vidmar sprung it on him in Round 3. Rubinstein's reply was 4.Bf4!? and the position became very complicated. On move 13 Rubinstein committed an error and he lost the game in 24 moves, an outright sensation. The four-player tournament continued, and the two other rivals of Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter and Jacques Mieses, scored one and a half point more after spectacular games. With this success, the fabulous Budapest Gambit was born.
Easy Development
The Budapest Gambit has maintained its good reputation until the present day. Its prestige is defended by great masters like Peter Svidler, Nigel Short, Vladimir Epishin, Ian Rogers, Jeroen Piket, Normunds Miezis, Boris Savchenko, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Georg Mohr and many other high-level players.
The gambit is also very popular at club level, yet it has never become a main defence against 1 .d4. However, it continues to be a weapon of great practical value, since it allows easy development of the black pieces.
Basic Ideas of the Gambit and General Advice
The main idea of the Budapest Gambit is to win back the pawn with simple developing moves. Black's knight immediately attacks White's extra pawn in the main line with 3...Ng4. White has enough moves to defend the pawn on e5: Nf3, Bf4, Qd4/Qd5, but move order is of paramount importance here.
The Budapest Gambit forces players to demonstrate a good level of calculation and a good feeling for piece play (in many Budapest games Black makes only 2-4 moves with his pawns in the opening phase).
Black's main weapon is tactics. Opportunities for this are offered by the typical Budapest Gambit pawn structure, with lots of free space and smooth development, which allows the black pieces to make unexpected manoeuvres. If Black continues actively and does not allow his rival to dictate the game, then his possibilities will be equal to White's.
If White spends tempi defending the e5 pawn, then Black must take advantage of this and seek the initiative, following the strategic ideas in each given variation.
When we analyse the Budapest Gambit games from the period 1918-1930, arguably by some of the classical players of the time, it becomes obvious that all of them tried to control the proceedings in their own way: Alekhine and Bogoljubow attacked; Euwe studied the details; Capablanca overcame his opponents technically; Rubinstein played 4. Bf4, pressing strategically.
Especially against the 4.e4 variation (the Alekhine System) some masters playing with the black pieces, like Richard Reti and Savielly Tartakower, tended to make too many significant mistakes at key moments, possibly due to their style or maybe because of lack of knowledge.
The problem with the Budapest is that few high-level games have been played with it in the past years. Most professionals do not dare to take so much risk and decide on a solid Queen's Gambit instead. The same happened at the beginning of the 20th century - see my discussion with Mr. Bohigas presented at the end of Chapter One, Part I. We hope that this will soon change and new gentlemen will appear who adopt the Budapest Gambit!
Content:
007 Presentation
009 Introduction
011 Statistics Report
Chapter One
015 Bishops against Knights
018 Part I The Schlechter Knight
050 Part II A New Glance at the Solid Nbd2
083 Part III Black Jet or The Fianchetto
Chapter Two
103 Pawns Against Pieces
106 Part I The Attacking Machine
120 Part III Knight Jumps
Chapter Three
153 Classical Style
155 Part I Beyond Rubinstein
159 Part II The Maroczy Attack
Chapter Four
183 War and Peace
184 Part I War
191 Part II Peace
Chapter Five
197 Black Knight Fiction
201 Part I The Trojan Horse
210 Part II Knight Poker
222 Part III The Milky Way
235 Epilogue
236 A brief biography of the Author
237 New In Chess Code System
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