Amit Kumar Sharma
Budapest Gambit

Editor's Note:
In this article, taken mostly from Wikipedia, Amit Kumar Sharma explains the Budapest Gambit adding a number of useful illustrative games.

The Budapest Gambit (or Budapest Defence) is a chess opening that begins with the moves:

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e5

Despite an early debut in 1896, the Budapest Gambit received attention from leading players only after a win as Black by Grandmaster Milan Vidmar over Akiba Rubinstein in 1918. It enjoyed a rise in popularity in the early 1920s, but nowadays is rarely played at the top level.

After 3.dxe5 Black can try the Fajarowicz variation 3...Ne4 which concentrates on the rapid development of pieces. But the most common move is 3...Ng4 with three main possibilities for White.

The Adler variation 4.Nf3 sees White seeking a spatial advantage in the centre with his pieces, notably the important d5-square.

The Alekhine variation 4.e4 gives White an important spatial advantage and a strong pawn centre.

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 brings a positional game in which White enjoys the bishop pair and tries to break through on the queenside, while 6.Nc3 keeps the material advantage of a pawn at the cost of a weakening of the white pawn structure. Black usually looks to have an aggressive game (many lines can shock opponents that do not know the theory) or cripple White's pawn structure.

Another interesting option for White is 4.e3 Nxe5 which leads to advantage as 5.d4 gives rapid development and better centre-control for White.

The Budapest Gambit contains several specific strategic themes. After 3.dxe5 Ng4, there is a battle over White's extra pawn on e5, which Black typically attacks with ...Nc6 and (after ...Bc5 or ...Bb4+) ...Qe7, while White often defends it with Bf4, Nf3, and sometimes Qd5. In the 4.Nf3 variation the game can evolve either with Black attacking White's kingside with manoeuvres of rook lifts, or with White attacking Black's kingside with the push f2–f4, in which case Black reacts in the centre against the e3-pawn. In numerous variations the move c4–c5 allows White to gain space and to open prospects for his light-square bishop. For Black, the check Bf8–b4+ often allows rapid development.

The first known game with the Budapest Gambit is Adler–Maróczy (played in Budapest in 1896).

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.

After this tournament, the gambit finally began to be taken seriously. Top players like Savielly Tartakower and Siegbert Tarrasch started to play it. The gambit reached its peak of popularity around 1920, 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).. 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.

This assessment was left unchanged for decades, During the time, various responses were developed against the 4.Bf4 line; these included 4...g5, invented by István Abonyi, further developed by the masters Bakonyi and Dolfi Drimer. The master Kaposztas showed that even when White succeeded in his positional plan, it only meant for Black a worse endgame with drawish tendencies. Two pawn sacrifices were also introduced in the variation with 6.Nbd2 (still in the 4.Bf4 line), based on pawn pushes d7–d6 or f7–f6 and a quick attack against b2.

White players found reinforcements and even invented a line with 4.e3 and 5.Nh3. In the 21st century, despite Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and other's successful efforts to rehabilitate the line 4.Bf4 g5, the Budapest Gambit almost never appears at the highest level. Its most recent appearance was when Richárd Rapport defeated Boris Gelfand with Black using the opening in round 2 of the 2014 Tata Steel Chess competition.

In the database of the website ChessGames.com, the Budapest Gambit scores 28.9% Black wins, 44.1% White wins and 27.1% draws. The percentage of draws is especially low compared to mainstream alternatives such as 2...e6 (43.7% draws) or 2...g6 (37% draw)

The Budapest Gambit has never been widely used as Black by the top-ten chessplayers. Richard Réti, Savielly Tartakower, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Rudolf Spielmann, Euwe, Yates, Sämisch. Nigel Short, Karpov, Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov, Van Wely, Kramnik etc. have faced it in their careers.

Nicolas Giffard summarises the modern assessment of the Budapest Gambit:
It is an old opening, seldom used by champions without having fallen in disgrace. While White has several methods to get a small advantage, this defence is strategically sound. Black gets a good pawn structure and possibilities of attack on the kingside. His problems generally come from the white pressure on the d-column and a lack of space to manoeuvre his pieces.

Boris Avrukh writes, "The Budapest Gambit is almost a respectable opening; I doubt there is a refutation. Even in the lines where White manages to keep an extra pawn, Black always has a lot of play for it".

Rubenstein Variation

Illustrative Games

Adler Variation

Illustrative Games

Alekhine Variation

Illustrative Games

Fajarowicz Variation

Illustrative Games

Budapest Gambit

Illustrative Games

Budapest Rook

Illustrative Games

Kieninger Trap

The Kieninger Trap is named after Georg Kieninger who used it in an offhand game against Godai at Vienna in 1925. It occurs in the Rubinstein variation 3...Ng4 4.Bf4 with 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 Qe7 7.a3

Trap in Fajarorwicz Variation

A rare variant has also occurred in a miniature in the Fajarowicz variation.

Another Budapest Rook Game

The following game was played between the former member of China's Olympiad team GM Wu Shaobin (White) and Nadanian (Black) at Singapore 2006: