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| Moves | 1.f4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ECO | A02–A03 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Named after | Henry Bird | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Synonyms |
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Bird's Opening (orBird Opening,[1]Stein Opening,[2] or theDutch Attack[3]) is achess opening beginning with the move:
Named after 19th-century English playerHenry Bird, Bird's Opening is a standardflank opening. White's strategic ideas involve control of the e5-square, offering good attacking chances at the expense of slightly weakening their ownkingside. Black's most common response is 1...d5, but Black may also challenge White's plan to control e5 immediately by playing the risky From Gambit (1...e5).
TheEncyclopaedia of Chess Openings assigns two codes for Bird's Opening: A02 (1.f4) and A03 (1.f4 d5).
The opening was mentioned byLuis Ramírez de Lucena in his bookRepetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez con Cien Juegos de Partido, published c. 1497. In the mid-nineteenth century the opening was sometimes played byLa Bourdonnais andElijah Williams, among others. The British masterHenry Edward Bird first played it in 1855 and continued to do so for the next 40 years.[4] After a six-year break from chess, he forgot how to play the more familiar openings.[5] In 1885, theHereford Times named it after him.[1] In the first half of the 20th centuryAron Nimzowitsch andSavielly Tartakower sometimes played 1.f4.[6] In more recent decades,grandmasters who have used the Bird's with any regularity includeBent Larsen,Andrew Soltis,Lars Karlsson,[7]Mikhail Gurevich, andHenrik Danielsen.[8]
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Black's most common response is 1...d5, when the game can take on the character of aDutch Defence (1.d4 f5) withcolours reversed. White will then often eitherfianchetto theirking's bishop with Nf3, g3, Bg2, and 0-0 with a reversed Leningrad Dutch; adopt aStonewall formation with pawns on d4, e3, and f4 and attempt akingside attack; or fianchetto theirqueen's bishop to increase their hold on the e5-square. Another strategy, by analogy with the Ilyin–Zhenevsky Variation of the Dutch Defence, involves White playing Nf3, e3, Be2, 0-0, d3 and attempting to achieve the break e3–e4 by various means, e.g. Ne5, Bf3, Qe2, and finally e3–e4, or simply Nc3 followed by e4. Timothy Taylor's book on Bird's Opening suggests as a main line: 1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.Be2 Nf6 5.0-0 0-0 6.d3 c5.
White can also play 2.c4, the Mujannah–Sturm Gambit. This is a decent opening and seems to borrow ideas from theRéti Opening (1.Nf3 d5 2.c4) and theQueen's Gambit Accepted. Eventually, this move order is followed by Nf3. The best move in this position is 2...d4, where the game continues in the style of the Réti Opening, with 3.Nf3 being a possible next move. 2.c4 is not a truegambit, since if Black tries to hold on to their pawn, they will be punished (2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5? [Black should pursuedevelopment instead] 4.a4 c6? 5.axb5 cxb5 6.Qf3, where Black must part with aminor piece, akin to theQueen's Gambit Accepted trap).
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| 8 | | 8 | |||||||
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Black'ssharpest reply is 1...e5!?, From's Gambit, named for the Danish chess playerMartin Severin From (1828–1895). White then has the option totranspose into theKing's Gambit with 2.e4. This is an important option which may cause Black to consider playing a different line if they wish to avoid the King's Gambit. It has been observed that one of the possible disadvantages of From's Gambit is that it is very easy for White to avoid.
If White accepts the gambit with 2.fxe5, Black must choose between the main line 2...d6 and the rather obscure 2...Nc6. After 2...Nc6,International Master (IM) Timothy Taylor, in his 2005 book on the Bird's, recommends 3.Nc3! Nxe5 4.d4 intending 5.e4, rather than 3.Nf3?! g5! when Black stands well.[9] After the normal 2...d6 3.exd6 Bxd6, White must play 4.Nf3, avoiding 4.Nc3?? Qh4+ 5.g3 Qxg3+ 6.hxg3 Bxg3checkmate. Then Black again has two alternatives: 4...g5 to drive away White's knight, and 4...Nf6, threatening 5...Ng4 and 6...Nxh2!
Futureworld championEmanuel Lasker introduced 4...g5 in the game Bird–Lasker, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1892, so it is known as "Lasker's Variation".[10] Taylor considers 4...g5 dubious; aquiet response that he considers favourable for White is 5.d4 g4 6.Ne5! (6.Ng5? leads to a dubious piece sacrifice) Bxe5 7.dxe5 Qxd1+ 8.Kxd1 Nc6 9.Nc3! Be6 (9...Nxe5?! 10.Bf4 f6 11.Nd5 Kd8 12.Nxf6!) 10.Bf4 0-0-0+ 11.Ke1 Nge7 12.e3 Ng6 13.Bg5 Rdf8 14.Bf6 Rhg8 15.Be2 Ngxe5 16.Rf1 "with the typical edge for White that is characteristic of this variation", according to Taylor.[11]
He also considers the sharper 5.g3 g4 6.Nh4 favourable for White, giving as the main line 6...Ne7 7.d4 Ng6 8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.Qd3 Nc6 (9...Rh5 10.Bg2; 9...Na6 10.c3) 10.c3 (10.Nc3? Nxd4! 11.Qxd4?? Bxg3+ wins White's queen) Bf5 (10...Qe7 11.Bg2! Bd7 12.Nd2 0-0-0 13.Ne4! favoured White in Taylor–Becerra Rivero, Minneapolis 2005) 11.e4 Qe7 12.Bg2 0-0-0 13.Be3. According to Taylor, White has a large advantage in all lines, although play remains extremely sharp, e.g. 13...Rde8 14.Nd2; 13...Rxh2 14.Rxh2 Bxg3+ 15.Kd1 Bxh2 16.exf5! Re8 17.fxg6! Qxe3 18.Qxe3 Rxe3 19.gxf7; or 13...Bd7 (threatening 14...Rxh2!) 14.Bf2![12]
The worst response to From's Gambit is 2.g4??, since Black will respond with 2...Qh4#—theFool's mate.
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| 8 | | 8 | |||||||
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After the symmetrical response 1...f5, an aggressive response is 2.e4. The main line is 2...fxe4 3.d3, followed by 3...exd3 4.Bxd3 Nf6. Also possible are 3...e3 (returning the pawn) 4.Bxe3 Nf6 and 3...Nf6. After 3...exd3 4.Bxd3 Nf6 5.Nf3 (5.g4 is well met by 5...d5, when after 6.g5, 6...Bg4 and 6...Ne4 are seen as good for Black) d5 6.0-0, Timothy Taylor considers White to have some, but not enough, compensation for the sacrificed pawn.[13]
The gambit was named by Polish theoreticianAlexander Wagner (1868–1942) in an article entitledA New Gambit. The Swiss Gambit in 1912, proposing 2...fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.g4,[14] known as the Wagner Gambit. He had introduced it in the Swisscorrespondence game Wagner–Kostin, 1910–11. Chess historianEdward Winter has criticised the usage of the term "Swiss Gambit" for all lines beginning 2.e4. F.A. Lange, writing in the June 1859Deutsche Schachzeitung, had already analysed the line 2.e4 fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3, which was played by many players, includingAdolf Anderssen, in the 19th century.[15]
Unrelated to this opening, term "Swiss Gambit" is also used colloquially to describe a strategy forSwiss system tournaments where a player intentionally loses or draws against weaker players early in the tournament, in the hope of being paired against weaker opposition in later rounds.[16]
Out of the twenty possible opening moves, 1.f4 ranks sixth in popularity inChessgames.com's database, behind1.e4,1.d4,1.Nf3,1.c4, and1.g3.[20] It is less than one-twentieth as popular as the mirror imageEnglish Opening (1.c4).[20] The move 1.f4 slightly weakens White'sking's position.[21] Chessgames.com's statistics indicate that the opening is not an effective way of preserving White'sfirst-move advantage: as of February 2013, out of 3,872 games with 1.f4, White had won 30.7%, drawn 32%, and lost 37.7%, for a total score of 46.7%.[20][22] White scores much better with the more popular 1.e4 (54.25%), 1.d4 (55.95%), 1.Nf3 (55.8%), 1.c4 (56.3%), and 1.g3 (55.8%), as well as with the less popular 1.b3 (52.5%).[20]
According to the similar site 365chess.com, which includes data for lower-level games, as of August 2015, out of 20,010 games with 1.f4, White had won 35.1%, drawn 25%, and lost 39.9%, for a total score of 47.6%.[23] The five more popular openings are still substantially more successful for White: 1.e4 (53.15%), 1.d4 (54.8%), 1.Nf3 (55.4%), 1.c4 (54.65%), and 1.g3 (54.9%).[23]
OnLichess, in the 1600–2200 rating range in rapid, classical, and correspondencetime controls, White wins 50% of the time while losing 45% of the time in the 2,600,000 games in their database. In those games the most common responses to 1.f4 are d5 (41%), e6 (11%), c5 (9%), e5 (7%), and Nf6 (7%). Black's most successful response to Bird's Opening in that rating range is e5, where Black's win percentage is 50–46%, but that evens to 48–48% when White plays 2.fxe5.
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