Benko Gambit, new to my repertoire

Today’s blog entry is from is from an online, turned-based game. I recently added the Benko, aka Volga, Gambit to my black repertoire. I purchased Raetsky & Chetverik’s Starting Out: benoni systems so I could respond to the Queen’s Gambit with a gambit of my own. This initial foray was very successful.

The variations and move symbols are Houdini’s (1.5 w32), diagnosed with ‘Scid vs PC’ at 10 seconds per ply. The opening book reference is Stockfish. The verbal comments are my thoughts during the game and my interpretations of the analysis provided by Houdini. The score chart is at the bottom of this entry.

This game features a sudden and devastating attack along the a1-h8 and a5-e1 diagonals. The Benko Gambit often gets these open diagonals.

As many of my loyal readers know, I have been experimenting with gambits in most of my games. I find that gambits change chess back to being fun, as they change the opening back to playing instead of a memory contest to see which player better memorized the opening moves.