Bird's Opening

Bird's Opening
a b c d e f g h
8 8
7 7
6 6
5 5
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1 1
a b c d e f g h
Moves 1.f4
ECO A02–A03
Named after Henry Bird
Parent Flank opening
Synonym(s) Dutch Attack
Chessgames.com opening explorer

Bird's Opening (or the Dutch Attack) is a chess opening characterised by the move:

1. f4

Bird's is a standard but never popular flank opening. White's strategic ideas involve control of the e5-square without occupying it, but his first move is also non-developing and slightly weakens his kingside. Black may challenge White's plan to control e5 immediately by playing From's Gambit (1...e5!?).

The Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings assigns two codes for Bird's Opening: A02 (1.f4) and A03 (1.f4 d5).

Contents
This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

History

The opening was mentioned by Luis Ramírez de Lucena in his book Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez con ci Iuegos de Partido, published circa 1497. In the mid-nineteenth century the opening was sometimes played by La Bourdonnais and Elijah Williams, among others. The British master Henry Edward Bird first played it in 1855 and continued to do so for the next 40 years.[1] In 1885, the Hereford Times named it after him.[2] In the first half of the 20th century Aron Nimzowitsch and Savielly Tartakower sometimes played 1.f4.[3] In more recent decades, Grandmasters who have used the Bird's with any regularity include Bent Larsen, Andrew Soltis, Lars Karlsson,[4] Mikhail Gurevich, and Henrik Danielsen.[5]

1...d5

Black's most common response is 1...d5, when the game can take on the character of a Dutch Defence (1.d4 f5) with colors reversed. White will then often either fianchetto his king's bishop with Nf3, g3, Bg2, and 0-0 with a reversed Leningrad Dutch; adopt a Stonewall formation with pawns on d4, e3, and f4 and attempt a kingside attack; or fianchetto his queen's bishop to increase his hold on the e5 square. Another strategy, by analogy with the Ilyin–Zhenevsky variation of the Dutch Defence, involves White playing 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 puts the main line Bird's Opening as follows: 1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.Be2 Nf6 5.0-0 0-0 6.d3 c5.

From's Gambit

Black's sharpest try is 1...e5!?, From's Gambit, named for the Danish chess player Martin Severin From (1828–1895). White can then transpose into the King's Gambit with 2.e4. 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.e4 intending 5.d4, rather than 3.Nf3?! g5! when Black stands well.[6] After the normal 2...d6 3.exd6 Bxd6, White must play 4.Nf3, avoiding 4.Nc3?? Qh4+ 5.g3 Qxg3+ 5.hxg3 Bxg3 checkmate. Then Black again has two alternatives: 4...g5 to drive away White's knight, and 4...Nf6, threatening 5...Ng4 and 6...Nxh2! Future World Champion Emanuel Lasker introduced 4...g5 in the game Bird–Lasker, Newcastle on Tyne, 1892, so it is known as "Lasker's Variation".[7] Taylor considers 4...g5 dubious; a quiet response that he considers favorable 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.[8] He also considers the sharper 5.g3 g4 6.Nh4 favorable 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?? Bg3+ wins White's queen) Bf5 (10...Qe7 11.Bg2! Bd7 12.Nd2 0-0-0 13.Ne4! favored 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 13...Rxh2!) 14.Bf2![9]

Other Black responses

Popularity

Out of the twenty possible opening moves, 1.f4 ranks sixth in popularity in ChessGames.com's database, behind 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4, and 1.g3.[15] It is less than one-twentieth as popular as the mirror image English Opening (1.c4).[15] The move 1.f4 slightly weakens White's king's position.[16] ChessGames.com's statistics indicate that the opening is not an effective way of preserving White's first-move advantage: as of February 6, 2009, out of 1,685 games with 1.f4, White had won 32.8%, drawn 25.3%, and lost 41.9%, for a total score of 45.45%.[15][17] 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%).[15]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Having forgotten familiar openings, I commenced adopting KBP for first move, and finding it led to highly interesting games out of the usual groove, I became partial to it." —Henry Bird (1873, entering match play after a six year absence from chess); Hooper and Whyld (1987), p. 32.
  2. ^ Hooper and Whyld (1992), p. 40.
  3. ^ de Firmian (2008), p. 732.
  4. ^ http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=18045
  5. ^ http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=56533
  6. ^ Taylor (2005), p. 181.
  7. ^ Taylor (2005), pp. 150–51.
  8. ^ Taylor (2005), pp. 149–52.
  9. ^ Taylor (2005), pp. 135–45.
  10. ^ Palliser (2006), p. 124.
  11. ^ Taylor (2005), pp. 202–03.
  12. ^ Taylor (2005), p. 210.
  13. ^ Taylor (2005), pp. 214–16.
  14. ^ Edward Winter, 'The Swiss Gambit' (1998).
  15. ^ a b c d Opening Explorer. ChessGames.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-06.
  16. ^ Adorján (1998), p. 27.
  17. ^ White's overall winning percentage is derived by taking the percentage of games won by White and adding half of the percentage of drawn games, in this case 32.8 plus half of 25.3.

References

External links