Wing gambit

This is a game which I played couple of hours before writting this article. I played this game on Internet chess club and it was against strong player rated 2047 on 15 minute setup. After the game we talk about the game and about the life and I founded out that he is from Finland, age 28 and he told me that he play Sicilian defense for about 3 years regulary as black. After I learned that I was very proud that I beat experienced Sicilian defense player who is preety strongly rated. I ask him how many times he played against wing gambit in Sicilian defense and he answered me that he played couple of times and that he always won with exception of one draw. This make me even more proud, becouse I firmly believe that Sicilian wing gambit is quite playable. Yes it has downsides, but as you will see in this game if your oponent is not realy prepared for it(and many guys are not) you can get preety good game and avoid tipical sharp Sicilian lines where you must learn a dozens of variations and traps in that opening. Well Sicilian is very, very theoretical opening, most GMs play it regulary and is probably the most solid opening for black, and black have some basic ideas right from the start. But when you play wing gambit in some way you shatter their previus plans in to ruins, and they have to play chess and not to move mechanicaly moves thet are memorized from books and experience..


I posted and article before about wing gambit in Sicilian but operator has decided that its a not good article and put it into blogs. If he hadnt done that I wouldnt have to say something about basic ideas of wing gambit which I came out in my own analises becouse I couldnt found some GM analises of the opening.

Ok some basics of the opening.

1. After e4 c5 you play imediet b4 which done lot of things. First you remove his c5 pawn away from the center which is in my opinion very good becouse basis of Sicilian defense is pawn majority in the center and counter atack later in the game. Of course if posible black will take the center using his pawn majority.


2. After you achieve your first goal (of course this is relayed if black took the pawn) you have lot of posible way to continue a3, d4, c4, c3 in some preety crazy variation you might also consider Bc4 altough I do not recomend it, and also there is idea which I came in mind, and that is simply to play Bb2, and you got something like Polish opening with pawn down, but you got nice presure on the long diagonal and you can see your oponents card, becouse he must decide how he is gonna continue so you can play acordingly.

3. You should know that I found this opening as very, very flexible, I watch about 80 GM games, and played about 20 games myself(with great succes) and they were all quite diffrent. So if you are good player, agresive and you are uncomfortable with learning long lines, this opening for you.

4. You should know that in my personal experience if black decline the gambit you can get upper hand with simply bxc4, and then d4 thrust and taking the center( of course there is always exceptions). In all games where my oponent declined the gambit I got easily upper hand, so I think you should be able to do it also.

5. After this steps, there are some ideas which ocurs more frquently then the others, one is to play a3 and offer some kind of Benko gambit reversed. For guys who are not familiar with the Benko gambit its basic idea is to develop quickly go 0-0 and after locking the center to put your rooks on both a and b open file and put serius pressure along those lines.

6. Black often choose that he acept the pawn on b4 play d5 next move to make the game more tactical and crazy(this is idea that my oponent use in this game which I will show to you, so I hope that from that example you will get some ideas about playing your own game )

7. Last but not least is a psichological blow to your oponent, becouse he certenly didnt play much games with this opening, he will certenly be uncomfortoble with the play (well in most cases) and its very posible that he will make some mistake which you could turn in to your favor(of course if you study that wing gambit and understand it ).


Here comes the game, I hope that you will enjoy, I will anotate it fully and hopefully I will get some comments and ideas about the opening. All critism is more then welcome, becouse analises are made by me, I realy couldnt find GM analises of the opening. Also I should say that some great players of the past played this opening, players like Frank Marshall and Rudolf Spielmann.Please comment all your ideas are more then welcome and I will answer to all comments and ideas you post.