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Budapest Gambit
The Budapest Gambit (or Budapest Defence) is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
Black sacrifices a pawn in return for active play. After being introduced by the Hungarian master Geza Maroczy in an off-hand game in 1896, the Budapest Gambit received attention from leading players after a win as Black by Milan Vidmar over Akiba Rubinstein in 1918. It enjoyed some popularity in the early 1920s, but since then it has rarely been played at the top level.
After 3...Ng4 intending to recapture the pawn on e5, White has three main replies. 4.Nf3 sees White seeking to return the pawn for quick development. The Alekhine Variation 4.e4 attempts to establish a strong pawn centre and space advantage. The Rubinstein Variation 4.Bf4 leads to an important choice for White, after 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+, between 6.Nbd2 and 6.Nc3. The reply 6.Nbd2 leads to a positional game in which White often enjoys the bishop pair, while 6.Nc3 keeps the material advantage of a pawn but allows Black to weaken White's pawn structure with ...Bxc3+.
In the less common Fajarowicz Variation (3...Ne4), Black forgoes regaining the pawn in favour of quickly generating tactical threats connected with ...Bb4+ as well as the f2-square.
The first known game with the Budapest Gambit was a casual game played between Mór Adler and Géza Maróczy in Budapest on 5 March 1896. Maróczy himself did not claim credit for the opening, attributing the initial discovery of its playability to Zsigmond Barász, and acknowledging István Abonyi and Gyula Breyer as further developers of the opening. Breyer played it in 1916 against the Dutch surgeon Johannes Esser in a small tournament in Budapest. The Austrian player Josef Emil Krejcik played it against Helmer in Vienna in 1917. Carl Schlechter published an optimistic analysis of the gambit in the Deutsche Schachzeitung.
The first use of the opening against a world-class player was at Berlin in April 1918, a double round-robin tournament with four players: Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter, Jacques Mieses and Milan Vidmar. Vidmar had to play Black in the first round against Rubinstein, then ranked the fourth best player in the world with a very positional style. At a loss for what to play, he sought advice from his friend Abonyi, who showed him the Budapest Gambit and the main ideas the Hungarian players had found. Vidmar followed Abonyi's advice and beat Rubinstein convincingly in just 24 moves. This victory so heartened Vidmar that he went on to win the tournament, while Rubinstein was so demoralised by this defeat that he lost another game against Mieses and drew a third one against Schlechter in the same opening.
After this tournament, the gambit finally began to be taken seriously. Top players like Richard Réti, Rudolf Spielmann and Savielly Tartakower played it in the 1920s. Schlechter published in 1918 the monograph Die budapester Verteidigung des Damengambits, which can be considered the first book on this opening. The gambit reached its peak of popularity around this time, so much so that many White players adopted the move-order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 to avoid it.
The leading exponents of 1.d4 started to look for reliable antidotes. Alexander Alekhine showed how White could get a strong attack with 4.e4 in his games against Ilya Rabinovich (Baden-Baden 1925) and Adolf Seitz (Hastings 1925–26). But a few weeks later a theme tournament on the Budapest Gambit was held, in Budapest, and the result was 14½–21½ in Black's favour. Another tournament in Semmering the same year saw Alekhine losing to Karl Gilg in his pet line with White against the gambit, so that the e4-line had a mixed reputation. Meanwhile, more positional plans were also developed for White. Rubinstein showed how White could get a small positional advantage with 4.Bf4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2, an assessment still valid today. The possibility 6.Nc3 was also considered attractive, as structural weaknesses were not valued as much as a material advantage of one pawn in those days. By the end of the 1920s, despite the invention of the highly original Fajarowicz Variation 3...Ne4 in 1928, the Budapest Gambit was considered theoretically dubious.
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Budapest Gambit
The Budapest Gambit (or Budapest Defence) is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
Black sacrifices a pawn in return for active play. After being introduced by the Hungarian master Geza Maroczy in an off-hand game in 1896, the Budapest Gambit received attention from leading players after a win as Black by Milan Vidmar over Akiba Rubinstein in 1918. It enjoyed some popularity in the early 1920s, but since then it has rarely been played at the top level.
After 3...Ng4 intending to recapture the pawn on e5, White has three main replies. 4.Nf3 sees White seeking to return the pawn for quick development. The Alekhine Variation 4.e4 attempts to establish a strong pawn centre and space advantage. The Rubinstein Variation 4.Bf4 leads to an important choice for White, after 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+, between 6.Nbd2 and 6.Nc3. The reply 6.Nbd2 leads to a positional game in which White often enjoys the bishop pair, while 6.Nc3 keeps the material advantage of a pawn but allows Black to weaken White's pawn structure with ...Bxc3+.
In the less common Fajarowicz Variation (3...Ne4), Black forgoes regaining the pawn in favour of quickly generating tactical threats connected with ...Bb4+ as well as the f2-square.
The first known game with the Budapest Gambit was a casual game played between Mór Adler and Géza Maróczy in Budapest on 5 March 1896. Maróczy himself did not claim credit for the opening, attributing the initial discovery of its playability to Zsigmond Barász, and acknowledging István Abonyi and Gyula Breyer as further developers of the opening. Breyer played it in 1916 against the Dutch surgeon Johannes Esser in a small tournament in Budapest. The Austrian player Josef Emil Krejcik played it against Helmer in Vienna in 1917. Carl Schlechter published an optimistic analysis of the gambit in the Deutsche Schachzeitung.
The first use of the opening against a world-class player was at Berlin in April 1918, a double round-robin tournament with four players: Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter, Jacques Mieses and Milan Vidmar. Vidmar had to play Black in the first round against Rubinstein, then ranked the fourth best player in the world with a very positional style. At a loss for what to play, he sought advice from his friend Abonyi, who showed him the Budapest Gambit and the main ideas the Hungarian players had found. Vidmar followed Abonyi's advice and beat Rubinstein convincingly in just 24 moves. This victory so heartened Vidmar that he went on to win the tournament, while Rubinstein was so demoralised by this defeat that he lost another game against Mieses and drew a third one against Schlechter in the same opening.
After this tournament, the gambit finally began to be taken seriously. Top players like Richard Réti, Rudolf Spielmann and Savielly Tartakower played it in the 1920s. Schlechter published in 1918 the monograph Die budapester Verteidigung des Damengambits, which can be considered the first book on this opening. The gambit reached its peak of popularity around this time, so much so that many White players adopted the move-order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 to avoid it.
The leading exponents of 1.d4 started to look for reliable antidotes. Alexander Alekhine showed how White could get a strong attack with 4.e4 in his games against Ilya Rabinovich (Baden-Baden 1925) and Adolf Seitz (Hastings 1925–26). But a few weeks later a theme tournament on the Budapest Gambit was held, in Budapest, and the result was 14½–21½ in Black's favour. Another tournament in Semmering the same year saw Alekhine losing to Karl Gilg in his pet line with White against the gambit, so that the e4-line had a mixed reputation. Meanwhile, more positional plans were also developed for White. Rubinstein showed how White could get a small positional advantage with 4.Bf4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2, an assessment still valid today. The possibility 6.Nc3 was also considered attractive, as structural weaknesses were not valued as much as a material advantage of one pawn in those days. By the end of the 1920s, despite the invention of the highly original Fajarowicz Variation 3...Ne4 in 1928, the Budapest Gambit was considered theoretically dubious.