I've noticed a lot of posts about this opening mostly people claiming that it is not a good opening for white.  I have never played this opening, and I have never played against it. I have also not studied this move at all, so I do not claim to know if it is good, bad, or questionable.  Admittadly if I where black and I saw this move I would consider it questionable, but again I have not studied it so saying that is just my "first impression" of the move. Just out of curosity I looked it up on www.chessgames.com and found that there database only has 234 games where white played 1.g4, however white won 59.8%,lost 29.5%, and drew the other 10.7%.  The database at chessbase.com turned up 2000 games after 1.g4 (it only displays 2000 games at a time) and by my count white won 38.4%, lost  39.45  and drew 22.15% so maybe it's best to say that 1.g4 is unclear?  I will look for other databases and post the results in the future.  Here is a nice short game played by Henry Grob

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Statistics are important, but you also have to consider the players involved. At this point, the consensus is that 1 g4 is unsound (the kingside thrust comes way too early), and my guess is that if 2700+ players started using it against each other, Black would be winning a much higher percentage.

 

Then again, IM Michael Basman has had some nice games with it.

Well if you prepae yourself correctly, you can manage to surprise your opponent, but I don't think there's mch other reasons to play this. I mean g4 achieves nothing and keeps the pawn vulnerable to the opponent's bishop and weakens your King side. g3 would be better. The only possible advantage of g4 is that it can make it uncomfortable for black to bring the f6 knight out, but there is a thousand ways to get around that.

awsome...

Below the master level, anything is playable. With most openings, even unsound ones, the player who knows the opening better will have an advantage. So there are players who use this opening and do well with it, but theoretically, it's not very good.

 

The only game I know of where two grandmasters played with this opening was an exhibition game between Karpov and Susan Polgar. Former Soviet Premier Gorbachev made the ceremonial first move and chose 1. g4. Apparently, Karpov tried to talk him into changing it to something better, but he really liked that move, so Karpov was forced to play it out. According to Polgar's description of the game (it was a fast game, so the moves weren't recorded), she had the better position (as black), when she got distracted by Gorbachev pouring water for the players or something like that. She lost her concentration and Karpov eventually won.

 

--Fromper 

The Grob is a lot better suited for club level, where players are more likely to play along the lines of 1.g4 ...d5 2.Bg2 ...Bxg4 and also more likely to fall into a trap, as the Grob can be a good way to surprise your opponent.

On here it could be good if you are geniunly good player you could "fool" your opponent into think you are clueless which may lead to them playing unsound moves.

"Just out of curosity I looked it up on www.chessgames.com and found that there database only has 234 games where white played 1.g4, however white won 59.8%,lost 29.5%, and drew the other 10.7%... so maybe it's best to say that 1.g4 is unclear?"

 

If you look closely, you'll notice the statistics are skewed by Bloodgood's prison massacres against lesser opponents.

 

C.Bloodgood-W.Waymire, Prison 1960:
1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 Bxg4 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Qb3 Qc8 6.Bxd5 Nc6 7.Bxf7+ Ke7
8.Bxg8 Rxg8 9.Qxg8 Nd4 10.Qc4 1-0

 

In the past 10 years, the Grob's scored 39% wins, 18% draws, and 43% losses. It's best to say it's unsound, but playable at the club level.

Shruikon wrote: The Grob is a lot better suited for club level, where players are more likely to play along the lines of 1.g4 ...d5 2.Bg2 ...Bxg4 and also more likely to fall into a trap, as the Grob can be a good way to surprise your opponent.

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 I've played g4 in several games on this site hoping for my opponent to follow this line but nobody has taken it.  I've also tried a number of times in blitz games on playchess.com without anybody following.  If anyone is interested in the Grob I recommend reading the e-book "The Tactical Grob" by Claude Bloodgood.  You can find it here: http://www.chessville.com/downloads/misc_downloads.htm

 

My conclusion, after studying it for a little while, is that the Grob is unsound, but playable at Club Level. However, there are soooo many better openings out there (1. e4, 1. d4, 1. c4, 1. Nf3, 1. b3 etc.), that the Grob is not reccommended by me. It just seems that the uneccesary weakening of White's King on the 1st move is just to bad.

There is a word Гроб in russian. It sounds [grob ] and means coffin. I don't start the game by this opening not only because of its name. I think it's weeker than 1.e4 or 1. d4

I have destroyed higher rated players with it because they do not know it.  With best play, Black gets a slight edge, but White has very good tactical chances.  Check this game out.

my  opinion , it's a very fun opening to play and can win games because :

1.nobody prepares as black against the grob ...

2.in blitz people do tend to make easier mistakes (with this opening even faster because they think you're a newbie)

3.the strange positions coming from the grob can be very annoying to someone who is used to normal classic openings .

4.people complain that it's weak because it weakens the kingside , but most people don't even know how to punish it.

btw, i hate doing something because everyone else does it to . I like playing ruy lopez , but it's no point playing that against someone who learns all the variations from it and has only played that since he/she was a beginner .

I played the Grob against a 1900 rated player, and he dropped his bishop. However, I played inaccurately, and I lost.

Out of curiosity, I looked up this seemingly bad opening in the 2007 Mega Chessbase (3 million+ games) and it only appears 463 times, of which only 357 are rated games.  I've included relevant statistics below:

• 187 White victories (40%)
  
• 193 Black victories (42%)
• 83 Draws (18%)
  

In the rated games, the average Elo for White is 2049 but White's average 'perform' Elo in Grob games was only 1980, which would at a minimum should be cause for concern in the mind of anyone thinking about using Grob.

 

In comparison, the average Elo for Black is 2058 w/perform Elo of 2028.  So, you can see that Black performed much closer to his actual Elo rating.  I think it's probably safe to assume that Black's unfamiliarity with White's opening is responsible for the disparity.

 

 The fact that so few titled players use this opening, combined with the subpar Winning % for White, is enough for me to conclude this opening is at a minimum, suspect, and at worst -- downright unsound.

 

 Hope I helped shed some light....

 

-Gonnosuke 

it seems that all theory has to say on the Grob Attack are lines with 1... d5 will control center and attack the pawn, but going after the pawn opens up the attack on you.  it seems to me that 1...e6 should be good. kind of like saying, "ok white just wasted a move, now i'm going to play like i'm white."

The eBook based on Bloodgood's Tactical Grob is in ChessBase format and has a good number of games that Bloodgood played.  I wrote Grob's Attack that included everything is Bloodgood's book, as well as Henri Grob's original book and Michael Basman's book and cassette tapes.  It is dated now (written in 1988), but it included every Grob game I could find in print at the time.  You may find the book at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Grobs-Attack-Bill-Wall/dp/093146286X)  or eBay, or just buy one of the CDs or DVDs that have milliions of games and search for 1.g4.  I might add some 1.g4 collections to the www.chess.com downloads later.

HotFlow wrote: On here it could be good if you are geniunly good player you could "fool" your opponent into think you are clueless which may lead to them playing unsound moves.

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 I know a guy who uses the Grob as his main opening and he usually wins!

I think calling the Grob "unsound" is a bit of an overstatement.  It's pretty hard for any 1st move to really be unsound.  (1 g4 e5 2 f3...now that's unsound.)

The gromper 1.g4?is a bad move.S