The Budapest Gambit (or Budapest Defence) is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5
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.dxe5 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 and advantage; the Rubinstein Variation (4.Bf4) leads to an important choice for White after 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ (i.e. the reply 6.Nbd2 leads to a positional game in which White often enjoys the , while 6.Nc3 keeps the 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.
History 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.Tseitlin 1992, p. 8Oleinikov 2005, chapter 3
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, a top-level player with a very 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.Tseitlin 1992, p. 7 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.Moskalenko 2007, p. 9
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.Oleinikov 2005, chapter 4Moskalenko 2007, p. 28
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 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.Tseitlin 1992, p. 9
This assessment was left unchanged for decades, as few players at the highest level used the Budapest Gambit and information about games from lesser players could not easily be found. During that 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.White's plan involves pawn advances on the queenside, resulting in the creation of a weak pawn for Black, then winning this weak pawn. In this process all minor pieces and queenside pawns are likely to disappear, so that White ends up in a better ending with four pawns on the kingside against three for Black, and only major pieces. This type of ending has drawish tendencies, as Kaposztas demonstrated in his games against Meleghegyi (Budapest 1981), Petran (Budapest 1974) or Farago (Budapest 1975), all of them drawn. 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.Oleinikov 2005, chapter 6
The Budapest Gambit saw a short-lived revival in 1984–85 when Chess Informant included three games (as many as in the previous fifteen years), all played at a high level of competition, and all won by Black.Oleinikov 2005, chapter 7 But White players found improvements and even invented a line with 4.e3 and 5.Nh3.Oleinikov 2005, chapter 8 Nigel Short attempted to surprise Anatoly Karpov with this opening in the first game of their 1992 World Championship Candidates semifinal match, but Karpov won a model game as White.Lalic 1998, pp. 23–25 In the 21st century, despite Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's successful efforts to rehabilitate the line 4.Bf4 g5, the Budapest Gambit almost never appears at the highest level.Oleinikov 2005, chapter 12Moskalenko 2007, p. 10 Vasyl Ivanchuk tried it once against Levon Aronian in the 2013 Candidates Tournament, but lost the game.
Strategic and tactical themes
White builds up an imposing pawn centre
In the Alekhine Variation White does not try to defend the e5-pawn and keep a material advantage, but instead concentrates on building an imposing pawn centre. This brings good prospects of a space advantage that may serve as a basis for a future attack on the . The extended pawn centre has its drawbacks, however, as Lalic explains: "White must invest some valuable tempi in protecting her pawn structure, which allows Black to seize the best squares for her minor pieces with excellent prospects for against the white centre."Lalic 1998, p. 9
Hence in this variation Black lets White build the pawn centre only to undermine it later, a playing philosophy espoused in the teachings of the hypermodern school. The strategic themes are similar to the ones that can be found in other openings like the Four Pawns Attack of the King's Indian Defence, the Alekhine Defence, or the Grünfeld Defence.
The "Budapest rook" and Black's kingside attack The "Budapest rook" is a manoeuvre in the 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Nf3 Bc5 variation, introduced by Dolfi Drimer in 1968,Moskalenko 2008, p. 159 where Black develops the a8 rook aggressively along the sixth using the moves ...a7–a5 and the ...Ra8–a6, intending to swing the rook over to the kingside.Lalic 1998, p. 12 For example, this can happen after the further moves 5.e3 Nc6 6.Nc3 0-0 7.Be2 Re8 8.0-0 Nxe5 9.Nxe5 Nxe5 10.b3 a5 11.Bb2 Ra6, when the rook may go to e6, g6 or h6 depending on how White continues.Moskalenko 2008, pp. 159, 161
The rook is then used to support a piece attack against White's castled king. Black can easily get several pieces around the white king, such as a rook to h6, a queen to h4 and a knight on g4. The queen's arrival on the h4-square is facilitated by the absence of a white knight on the f3-square (that would otherwise cover the h4-square) and of a black knight on the f6-square (that would block the way for the black queen). If White tries to defend with h2–h3, this may allow Black's light-square bishop to be sacrificed at h3 in order to open the h-.Lalic 1998, p. 13 Black often tries to keep the dark-square bishop on the a7–g1 diagonal, attacking White's pawn on e3 and making it difficult for White to play f2–f4 to chase away the black knight on e5.Moskalenko 2008, p. 162
The "Budapest rook" variation became popular in the 1980s. Delaying ...d7–d6 in order to allow the rook lift has its drawbacks: the light-square bishop has to wait a long time to develop, and any attack on the Bc5 is potentially annoying for Black, since it means either closing the sixth rank with ...d6/...b6, abandoning the active a7–g1 diagonal, or blocking the rook if retreated to a7. This, in addition to the committal nature of Black's plan (with nothing to fall back on if the direct attack is repelled), has made some revisit the old lines where Black plays an early ...d7–d6, where it is instead the king's rook that can be brought to the sixth rank via ...Rf8–e8–e6.Moskalenko 2008, p. 181
Black exchanges the dark-squared bishop after ...Bb4+
Rapid piece development is a cornerstone of Black's strategy in the Budapest Gambit, and developing the dark-squared bishop to b4 with check is consistent with this theme.Lalic 1998, p. 9Moskalenko 2008, p. 124 The move ...Bb4+ can be followed by ...Qe7 attacking White's pawn on e4 in the Alekhine Variation,Moskalenko 2008, pp. 125, 131 or on e5 in the Rubinstein Variation.Moskalenko 2008, p. 24
Whenever possible, White tends to block the check by moving the b1-knight to c3 or d2. After White eventually attacks the bishop with a2–a3, Black will be forced to either capture the knight and concede the , or lose time retreating the bishop.Moskalenko 2008, pp. 50, 52–53 When choosing the former option, Black will seek some type of positional compensation in return for giving White the bishop pair; otherwise, Black risks drifting into a passive position.Avrukh 2010, pp. 72, 76–77
For instance, in the Rubinstein Variation 3...Ng4 4.Bf4 with 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nc3, after 6...Bxc3+ 7.bxc3 White's isolated, doubled c-pawns provide compensation for Black's loss of the bishop pair, even if Black does not regain the pawn on e5.Moskalenko 2008, p. 18 Since White cannot control the c5-square with a pawn, that square is useful as an outpost for Black's pieces.Moskalenko 2008, p. 47 Piece exchanges can be good for Black even if he is a pawn down, as he can hope to exploit the crippled pawn structure in the ending.Lalic 1998, p. 10
Meanwhile, in the Rubinstein Variation with 6.Nbd2, Black can anticipate White's intended a2–a3 by playing ...a7–a5–a4 to fix White's queenside pawns.Avrukh 2010, p. 72Moskalenko 2008, p. 53 For example, Moskalenko recommends the variation 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 Qe7 7.e3 Ngxe5 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.Be2 a5 10.0-0 d6, with the point that if White tries to force Black to trade the b4-bishop with 11.Nb3 followed by 12.a3, Black has the reply 11...a4 12.a3 Bc3! keeping the balance.Avrukh 2010, p. 82Moskalenko 2008, p. 72