i literally came here to check your weapon against d4 and to my pleasant surprise i found out you just published this…so excited to watch it…thanks a lot
Hello Sir..really instructive video! as a king's indian defence player, could you come up a video on KID with benko ideas...that would be awesome...thank you
Please make your gambit tier list. You are the most famous gambit expert, no one will do it better than you. The fact that there is still no such list does not make sense.
Really love watching your gambits! Still trying to figure it all out, was playing it out a bit, and at 36:15 you have the opponent moving e4 to get their bishop out to castle. Opponent goes to a possibly better move - KnE5, threatening a Rook/Queen fork. I castle, but with Knight on E5, I can't prevent white from castling :(
21:00 Shankland’s d4 course on Chessable actually covers the a3 line quite well, with the point being that you can play Ne2 to reinforce the knight and renew the threat of b4. Black’s best line seems to be giving up a piece and the queen gets chased around a bit, but you probably still have some play
Although some might try to memorize lines described here or try to play your "opening" I found a lot more value in just considering how each pawn exchange would result in arriving at major outcome ls of taking the pawn center, giving the pawn center away or resolving the center so as to attack the remaining pawns in the wing. For each option, piece activity is maximized which is an important tenet of modern chessplay.
At 31:13 there is also 8...f5 which temporarily defends the knight and apparently makes room for the king. But after 9.f3 Nf6 10.Nd6# black finds out that ...f5 didn't make any room for the king after all. I find it amusing.
43:53. This move where we trade bishops on a6, I am not sure you can play Nxf3. Because when they retake, yes, they will have doubled pawns, but the pawn on f3 attacks the knight on e4. When you move it , their light bishop can escape and you lost a whole knight just to double their pawns. Right? But after Bxa6, I think you can do that trick with Qa5+ and then Qxa6. Not sure where the game will go from there but they cant castle easily and we can still aim to put the knight on f2
After 3 Nf3: ...e6 and...d5, which WG suggests, i.e.Janowski's QGD, is not a gambit of course, but we can't have everything. Maybe 4...Bb4, a strange NID with ...a6, essentially a move down unless ...b5 can somehow be arranged successfully. Playable though: Stockfish 16 +0.5
I've played 1.... Nf6, 2.... c5 and 3.... a6 a lot. There's a lot of transpositions. Benkos, e5 Sicilians, and Czech Benonis. A number of players 4. Nc3 b5 5 Nxb5 Ba6 6 e3 which loses a piece.
I play the 1 ... Nf6, 2 ...c5 3. ... a6. If a4 then I play e5 and Czech Benoni where white with a4 can't castle q side and also the common break white a3-b4 is a lot harder. Although Czech Benoni has a solid rep, there's variations where black delays castling, plays Nf8-g5, ng6 and throws stuff up to attack the k side with the center closed. Benjamin finegold plays this.
Your analysis of the line works very well with 3 Nc3 which is apparently more aggressive than 3 Nf3, but the lines tend to turn out to be comparatively attractive for Black. I look forward to what you'd recommend after 3. Nf3. Perhaps 3...b5 4.Nc3 e6 5.cxb5 axb5 6.Nxb5 which looks similar, but is less dynamic as the W pawn is on d4.
@@HighlyCruciferous Good point, but the D-I has issues of its own: 3.Nf3(!) 3...e6 4.Nc3 c5 5.d5 b5 [Djin or Dzindzi-Indian, also played by Miles and Alburt] 6.e4!? gets nasty for B after... 6...b4 7.e5 bxc3 8.exf6 which favours W. Or 6.dxe6!? fxe6 7.e4 (7.cxb5?!) 7...b4 8.e5). The D-I would be fine for playing rapid games online, but risky if repeatedly used in classic games. Admittedly, this site attracts people looking for quick kills in rapid games. And I should mention that I'm only 12 minutes into this video, but I have spent hours following up on the core recommendations in the pgn.
[My earlier reply has vanished: I'll try again] Good point. The fascinating Dzindzi-Indian or Djin has issues though, at least in a repertoire for games at classical time control. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 a6 3.Nf3 e6 4.Nc3 c5 5.d5 b5 6.e4! b4 7.e5 bxc3 8.exf6 is good for W 8...h6 (Stockfish 16's choice) 9.fxg7 Bxg7 10.bxc3 Bxc3+ Alas, this doesn't work 11.Bd2 Bxa1?! 12.Qxa1. @@HighlyCruciferous
As Graif clearly states, move order matters here a *lot*. But it is interesting how, if accepted, the gambit gets you a relatively favorable position for black in the the Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation. It is refreshing how deep his analysis goes. Certainly, once I have spent more time on this video, I intend to give this gambit a test drive on Lichess; however, at the end of the video Graif diligently reports the bad news: white can decline the gambit with a well-timed a3. While the ensuing position is playable for black, I think white's position is far easier to play over the board. So I don't think this is a "crush" at all.
Well, I finally got to play this gambit. White declined the gambit and black got a playable game - a game I went on to win. But I missed a better move early on. [Event "Casual rapid game"] [Opening "Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation, Nescafe Frappe Attack"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 a6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 b5 5. cxb5 axb5 6. e4 b4 7. Nb5 { A57 Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation, Nescafe Frappe Attack } d6 8. Bf4 Nbd7?! { (-0.53 → 0.04) Inaccuracy. g5 was best. } Yeah, I considered ..g5 during the game, but I thought it was too risky. I was both wrong and failing to play a Benoni in the spirit it demands: play dynamically or die. Of course, this is a Benko Gambit decline, but it *felt* like a Benoni position to me.
Interesting move order, deferring the Benko's...g6 and the Blumenfeld's: ...e6. And avoiding both the truckloads of prep needed for the former and the known vulnerabilities of the latter. There may be potential transpositions to the 'The Modern Treatment of the Blumenfeld Gambit' [1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 a6 4 Nc3 c5 5 d5 b5] in Przewoznik and Pein (1991), but you show that Black can do better than this and thus sidestep quite a few fragile lines in the Blumenfeld. Also Eric Schiller, Win with the Djin! (1994) is based on an early Nf3.
Yes, good points! I spent most of the time on 3. Nc3 in the video because it is overwhelmingly the most common move in that position per the lichess DB. I think it is important that on any other third move by white, black makes effective use of their a6 move as I recommended in the video with common e6 and d5 ideas. e6 with c5 is likewise interesting though
You might want to fix the chapter titles: 48:47 should be named "6.Nxb5 and 8.Sc3", the chapter at 51:24 should be named "6.Nxb5 and 8.Sf3", the chapters at 39:10, 43:05 and 46:22 should be renamed to "8.Nd6+ and 10.Qe5/f4", "8.Nd6+ and 10.Qd1" and "MyGame: 8.Nd6+ and 10.Qd3" respectively.
Sir may i ask you your recommendation which gambit should i study this one or your Budapest repertoire against d4? i’m bored from playing the slav and torn between these two awesome lines…
Yes!! Very low risk in that the top stockfish response is very difficult for white to find otb and also not even that bad. And very high reward! :) lmk how it goes
@@GambitMan Well maybe i will try it as a surprise weapon. Need to study it a lil more first though. Anyway i just broke 2k fide today by premature ejac.. uhh resignation
mostly to complicated the gambits de graif for me , i lost so mant times with the stafford veriation with Bc4 from white and then the attack on F7 wit Knight or Bichop ..i prefer de boedapeat gambiet
Hate to break it to you but it isnt remotely brand new, years ago i showed pretty much all of the lines following 6....e6 to a old soviet FM and he recognized it immediately.
Yes, but credit for any given system in chess rarely goes to the first person who played it; it usually goes to the person who contributed most significantly to the development of its theory (or, more bluntly, who popularized it.) I think Mr. Graif has clearly put a lot of research into this and will put a lot more in in the future, so I believe he still deserves a ton of credit for developing and sharing his work with us.
![Underrated BUT Aggressive Opening Against 1.d4 [TRAPS Included]](/img/n.gif)
Me: Switches to d4 after only playing e4 all my life
FM William Graif the very next week: Crush 1. d4 EVERY Time
Just play into a von popiel to avoid this I guess lol! (d4 Nf6 Nc3 d5 e4
@@ponzi_0 That's not true d4 ^^
@@HighlyCruciferous oop! 👀
i literally came here to check your weapon against d4 and to my pleasant surprise i found out you just published this…so excited to watch it…thanks a lot
Awesome video, William! Thanks for all of the hard work you put into it
Thanks!! No problem, people like you and comments like these are why I love doing what I do :)
Hello Sir..really instructive video! as a king's indian defence player, could you come up a video on KID with benko ideas...that would be awesome...thank you
How nice of you, William:)…
Cheers and best wishes!
the smile at 2:30 is soooo sinister you know something evil and devastating is coming right up…this channel is amazing 😊😊😈😈
Please make your gambit tier list. You are the most famous gambit expert, no one will do it better than you. The fact that there is still no such list does not make sense.
There ist one guy who rated every gambit on lichess, like 630 or so in an 12 hour video
Jonathan Schrantz is much more famous
What If i make a gambit tierlist 😂 lol
@@gusleffers9265 didn't he quit tho?
Brilliant gambit: Combining the a6 wing gambit, with the modern e6 Benko. Can tell lots of effort went into making the gambit work. Bravo!
Thanks for sharing your hard work and explaining it so well. Hat tip to your channel.
A fine return to form with this video!
Wow this one is really great, now I have a full repertoire of gambit man gambits
sick video mate thank you so much! have a great christmas
A *real* chess opening??
"You're on the wrong channel !"
'INTENTIONAL MAN' 🚹 strikes again !!
Really love watching your gambits! Still trying to figure it all out, was playing it out a bit, and at 36:15 you have the opponent moving e4 to get their bishop out to castle. Opponent goes to a possibly better move - KnE5, threatening a Rook/Queen fork. I castle, but with Knight on E5, I can't prevent white from castling :(
Great idea for an improved Benko gambit! This was played by the Hungarian GM Laszlo Barczay in 1976 in several games and should be named after him.
I played it in several games in 1972, the year I was born, and it should be named after me - GM Oisin O Muircheartaigh
I was learning King's Indian Defence theory but this is way more fun! Also the opponent will be less prepared!
21:00 Shankland’s d4 course on Chessable actually covers the a3 line quite well, with the point being that you can play Ne2 to reinforce the knight and renew the threat of b4. Black’s best line seems to be giving up a piece and the queen gets chased around a bit, but you probably still have some play
Shankland’s d4 course covered this line with 2… a6 ?! Wow that’s extensive lol
Fun review of advantages of isolated center pawn.
Although some might try to memorize lines described here or try to play your "opening" I found a lot more value in just considering how each pawn exchange would result in arriving at major outcome ls of taking the pawn center, giving the pawn center away or resolving the center so as to attack the remaining pawns in the wing. For each option, piece activity is maximized which is an important tenet of modern chessplay.
At 31:13 there is also 8...f5 which temporarily defends the knight and apparently makes room for the king. But after 9.f3 Nf6 10.Nd6# black finds out that ...f5 didn't make any room for the king after all. I find it amusing.
Stockfish 16 suggests: 2...a6 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 b5 5.a3 This stops ...b4 and permits 6 e4 [edit: as noted at 56:18]
44:57 there's an option to Rf8 to Rf1 and then Ng3 royal fork too
59:55 This is a direct transposition to the Dzinzi-Indian Defense. Many GM games have gone 4...c5 5 d5 and either 5...b5 or 5...exd5 6 exd5 b5
This is like wagon gambit for Jonathan schrantz but with c4. Interesting
This is just a benko transposition... but I've seen people not pay attention to move order specifics, which is why I love the GM... GM William graif
isn't it a Volga transposition? If we're looking at "specifics" I thought Benko required bxa6
@@ponzi_0Two names for the same line 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 b5 is called Benko in the west and Volga in Russia/former eastern block
@@HighlyCruciferous oh okay I'm probably misremembering from this one Finegold video about the Benko
43:53. This move where we trade bishops on a6, I am not sure you can play Nxf3. Because when they retake, yes, they will have doubled pawns, but the pawn on f3 attacks the knight on e4. When you move it , their light bishop can escape and you lost a whole knight just to double their pawns. Right?
But after Bxa6, I think you can do that trick with Qa5+ and then Qxa6. Not sure where the game will go from there but they cant castle easily and we can still aim to put the knight on f2
After 3 Nf3: ...e6 and...d5, which WG suggests, i.e.Janowski's QGD, is not a gambit of course, but we can't have everything.
Maybe 4...Bb4, a strange NID with ...a6, essentially a move down unless ...b5 can somehow be arranged successfully. Playable though: Stockfish 16 +0.5
Yes, good point. I suggested with e6 and d5 so that a6 is a useful move
I've played 1.... Nf6, 2.... c5 and 3.... a6 a lot. There's a lot of transpositions. Benkos, e5 Sicilians, and Czech Benonis. A number of players 4. Nc3 b5 5 Nxb5 Ba6 6 e3 which loses a piece.
To clarify, 2...a6 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 b5 5.cxb5 axb5 6.Nxb5 Ba6 7.e3? Bxb5 8.Bxb5 Qa5+
"bishops can cook" "lots of fish to eat" I'm only halfway through but if there's no name.. the Kitchen Gambit?!
Chef's Gambit? :)
I play the 1 ... Nf6, 2 ...c5 3. ... a6. If a4 then I play e5 and Czech Benoni where white with a4 can't castle q side and also the common break white a3-b4 is a lot harder. Although Czech Benoni has a solid rep, there's variations where black delays castling, plays Nf8-g5, ng6 and throws stuff up to attack the k side with the center closed. Benjamin finegold plays this.
Your analysis of the line works very well with 3 Nc3 which is apparently more aggressive than 3 Nf3, but the lines tend to turn out to be comparatively attractive for Black. I look forward to what you'd recommend after 3. Nf3. Perhaps 3...b5 4.Nc3 e6 5.cxb5 axb5 6.Nxb5 which looks similar, but is less dynamic as the W pawn is on d4.
3...e6 is a direct transposition to the Dzindzi-Indian Defense
@@HighlyCruciferous Good point, but the D-I has issues of its own: 3.Nf3(!) 3...e6 4.Nc3 c5 5.d5 b5 [Djin or Dzindzi-Indian, also played by Miles and Alburt] 6.e4!? gets nasty for B after... 6...b4 7.e5 bxc3 8.exf6 which favours W. Or 6.dxe6!? fxe6 7.e4 (7.cxb5?!) 7...b4 8.e5). The D-I would be fine for playing rapid games online, but risky if repeatedly used in classic games. Admittedly, this site attracts people looking for quick kills in rapid games. And I should mention that I'm only 12 minutes into this video, but I have spent hours following up on the core recommendations in the pgn.
[My earlier reply has vanished: I'll try again] Good point. The fascinating Dzindzi-Indian or Djin has issues though, at least in a repertoire for games at classical time control. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 a6 3.Nf3 e6 4.Nc3 c5 5.d5 b5 6.e4! b4 7.e5 bxc3 8.exf6 is good for W 8...h6 (Stockfish 16's choice) 9.fxg7 Bxg7 10.bxc3 Bxc3+ Alas, this doesn't work 11.Bd2 Bxa1?! 12.Qxa1. @@HighlyCruciferous
Wake up babe, new gambitman video just dropped!
As Graif clearly states, move order matters here a *lot*. But it is interesting how, if accepted, the gambit gets you a relatively favorable position for black in the the Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation. It is refreshing how deep his analysis goes. Certainly, once I have spent more time on this video, I intend to give this gambit a test drive on Lichess; however, at the end of the video Graif diligently reports the bad news: white can decline the gambit with a well-timed a3. While the ensuing position is playable for black, I think white's position is far easier to play over the board. So I don't think this is a "crush" at all.
you said you would do my gambit😥, great video tho!
Well, I finally got to play this gambit. White declined the gambit and black got a playable game - a game I went on to win. But I missed a better move early on. [Event "Casual rapid game"]
[Opening "Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation, Nescafe Frappe Attack"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 a6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 b5 5. cxb5 axb5 6. e4 b4 7. Nb5 { A57 Benko Gambit: Zaitsev Variation, Nescafe Frappe Attack } d6 8. Bf4 Nbd7?! { (-0.53 → 0.04) Inaccuracy. g5 was best. } Yeah, I considered ..g5 during the game, but I thought it was too risky. I was both wrong and failing to play a Benoni in the spirit it demands: play dynamically or die. Of course, this is a Benko Gambit decline, but it *felt* like a Benoni position to me.
This video motivates me to come back to chess
Great gambit! I find myself struggling against 2. Nf3 tho. Do you have anything against that?
Interesting move order, deferring the Benko's...g6 and the Blumenfeld's: ...e6. And avoiding both the truckloads of prep needed for the former and the known vulnerabilities of the latter. There may be potential transpositions to the 'The Modern Treatment of the Blumenfeld Gambit' [1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 a6 4 Nc3 c5 5 d5 b5] in Przewoznik and Pein (1991), but you show that Black can do better than this and thus sidestep quite a few fragile lines in the Blumenfeld. Also Eric Schiller, Win with the Djin! (1994) is based on an early Nf3.
Yes, good points! I spent most of the time on 3. Nc3 in the video because it is overwhelmingly the most common move in that position per the lichess DB. I think it is important that on any other third move by white, black makes effective use of their a6 move as I recommended in the video with common e6 and d5 ideas. e6 with c5 is likewise interesting though
You might want to fix the chapter titles: 48:47 should be named "6.Nxb5 and 8.Sc3", the chapter at 51:24 should be named "6.Nxb5 and 8.Sf3", the chapters at 39:10, 43:05 and 46:22 should be renamed to "8.Nd6+ and 10.Qe5/f4", "8.Nd6+ and 10.Qd1" and "MyGame: 8.Nd6+ and 10.Qd3" respectively.
Please, dear William Gambit man, can you show a full game after the ideal main turns?
Looks great but I can never see myself passing on a Budapest gambit
That one position looks like the Maroczy Bind. Seems like white could play e4 and c4 without playing d5.
Sir may i ask you your recommendation which gambit should i study this one or your Budapest repertoire against d4? i’m bored from playing the slav and torn between these two awesome lines…
This looks like the blumenfeld gambit. Could be Nice to compare them
Oh, wow, 38:06 and SF recommends just to abandon the queen.
Any thoughts if after 1...NKB3, White goes for a London or Jobava London?
he suggests d5 and if jobava he has a vid on it 3..Nc6👀
Benko Gambit: Zaitsev System
Is this playable in classical as a surprise weapon? Asking for a friend
Yes!! Very low risk in that the top stockfish response is very difficult for white to find otb and also not even that bad. And very high reward! :) lmk how it goes
@@GambitMan Well maybe i will try it as a surprise weapon. Need to study it a lil more first though. Anyway i just broke 2k fide today by premature ejac.. uhh resignation
i have been playing it exclusively for years including in classical, its fine
@@lakinther7183 So how are your results with it and what's your rating? :)
676 Hettinger Stravenue
This looks like the blumenfeld gambit
mostly to complicated the gambits de graif for me , i lost so mant times with the stafford veriation with Bc4 from white and then the attack on F7 wit Knight or Bichop ..i prefer de boedapeat gambiet
4:42 real openings don't get into weekly gambit vids!
Hate to break it to you but it isnt remotely brand new, years ago i showed pretty much all of the lines following 6....e6 to a old soviet FM and he recognized it immediately.
Yes, but credit for any given system in chess rarely goes to the first person who played it; it usually goes to the person who contributed most significantly to the development of its theory (or, more bluntly, who popularized it.) I think Mr. Graif has clearly put a lot of research into this and will put a lot more in in the future, so I believe he still deserves a ton of credit for developing and sharing his work with us.
Had no ECO code = no published theory = his variation
Second😢
First
For some reason I can't comment directly so I'll do it here: 4.e4 and white has a maroczy bind right?
@@Soughkinda but not exactly, after cxd4 white has to capture back with queen instead of knight which gives black extra tempi
Trash gambit