Considering the Budapest

I do the usual stuff: I do not spoonfeed them any opening, let them choose themselves, and I just provide material, and ideas. I never had the chance to prepare someone for a world title match, but I had that chance in two cases for world championship individual tournaments.

In the first case, we had no luck, and WGM Botsari finished second at the World Girls U-20 championship at Mamaia, Romania, after leading for many rounds, and finally spoiling a couple of virtually winning positions.

The other student, WGM Kouvatsou, had more luck, and won the 1999 World U-20 Championship at Yerevan- probably because I was coaching her for a rather short time, when I was living at Chania, Crete... 

Her openings as white were "cutting edge": Exchange French, Alapin Sicilian, oldfashioned Italian, in general the same openings she was taught by her first coach when she was ten years old. She felt very confident about them, and I had no reason to change ANYTHING. Openings do not make you a strong player, positional understanding and tactical skill does.

Well, while I am sure that coaching-guiding two women for a competition it's not a piece of cake and congratulations for WGM Kouvatsou success. I thought that in a major event like a final game match the role of a coach should be to suggest the better choices when his student/player has the ability to play rather equal many opening ideas. I agree with your final statement but there are always preferences when you have a lot of weapons to choose for.

So...I change my question and I say what if your student ask your opinion in what to choose irrelevant from his opponent and abilitys. What you will recommend? It's the Modern Benoni defense the best suggestion?

The Modern Benoni MIGHT be the right choice for players with a certain playing style, and quite unsuitable for others. If I think that it could fit the players style, then would suggest it, but not insist if the player said no. And- needless to say, if a student announced to me that he wants to play the Budapest, I would reply "fine- good luck with it, and don't expect any help".

Actually you can meet players rated over 2000 FIDE, who don't have any "playing style" yet...

Most of the credits for WGM Kouvatsou belong to her first trainer, NM Kostas Tsarouhas, and her later trainer, IM Zahari Zahariev. Botsari had a second coach, IM Gavrilakis, which did the most openings' work with her. I was mostly working as a trainer with boys, and several of them became FIDE titled players, but only one of them (GM Spiros Kapnisis) is currently active. I have also coached most of the members of the current Greek National Team (all of them GM's), but of course coaching is much easier than individual training...

Thank you, for your time to answer my question. Yes the Modern Benoni is a opening that requires a particular style of play considering the weakness and the potential counter play.

As you see I don't dare to ask if you will ever recommend the Budapest gambit. Lol...it's not about the style of play, anymore.

4...g5 looked bad to me too, but Chessbase gave it a hot bar with an implication of gaining theoretical traction.  4...Nc6 has far more games however so that's currently the mainline.  My engine personally seems to like 4...Bb4+ best, which actually makes far more sense ironically from a human perspective than 4...g5.  

I've seen games where both white and black have great wins in the Modern Benoni.  Karpov's handling against it and Topalov's handling of it though are truly legendary.  

I've come to the conclusion a while ago that the Budapest is an inferior alternative to other openings that generate a somewhat similar style of play without giving white static and even dynamic advantages he gets to keep.  I don't mind if white has some positional advantage as long as I have enough active play to neutralize it.  

I was motivated by the question largely because I seem to be drawing more with the Nimzo-Indian while with the Dutch I risk dangerous sidelines:

Then again I have improvised nicely with decent results:

But not all white replies for the Dutch are for everyone though.  

Hm I'd never heard of Chessbase giving "hot bars" to opening variations. That's really funny. That sort of seems like a fashion magazine telling teenage girls what clothes are in this season. Is this all because Jobava played it in a few games?

At some point another charismatic SuperGM will get some more nice wins with the Budapest and the whole opening will become popular. I think it deserves that popularity. It's actually been one of my most successful openings and I've about a 60% win rate with it against roughly equal or slightly better opposition. The Budapest is like a fanny pack. People say it's lame, but it works very well.

It seems to me that you are way too obsessed with the opening, and switch way too much. That's a great method to stay an eternal patzer- and your trainer who dismissed the Berlin should have already told you so (if he does exist, that is).

I have come to like 11...h6 in the game position. Very useful preparation for a later Nh5 and possibly f5. It's probably not the best line you can play against the Bf4-setup, but it's playable and poses white practical problems - especially weaker players often struggle to find a good plan. And 9...Nbd7 10.Nd2 is just so nice for black that I don't want to play 9...Re8.

My personal belief is that 9...Re8 and the subsequent mutual pseudo-sacrifices of the exchange are by now predictable, rather dull... and mandatory. I would really love seeing 9...Nbd7 to work, but I have lost faith in it.

Exactly my view, except for the loss of faith.  The abovementioned move worked quite well for me so far, although I have to admit that I only tried it in rapid games on ICC yet.

I have some Berlin games I'm not too proud of.  While I won the first one I did needless and unsound tactics in a singleminded attempt to simplify while a piece up:

And here I totally mangled the Berlin Wall as black, but still managed to draw despite an unexpected blow I should have seen after 20...c5?? throwing away the advantage:

In my opinion, even in the mainline Bf4 variations in the Budapest, Black ends up with a slight disadvantage. White is always the one with any pawn breaks, and Black has to just sit around and wait with his "piece activity" while White tries to break Black's position with a c5 push, etc. Black doesn't even have a kingside attack in these lines. Objectively, the position is probably drawn but the positions are just practically depressing.

The Adler lines are sharper for both sides because Black does get some kind of kingside play. With best play, White can rebuff this attack and end up with a positional advantage but Black is usually comfortable in these lines because this is what Black plays the Budapest for. 

I've played the Budapest a few times and eventually gave it up because the Nimzo Indian, Bogo Indian, King's Indian etc. provides the same chances for piece activity from a positionally sounder basis.

 Then maybe you should try 9...Na6. The Mikenas maneuver works pretty fine in this line combined with the later b6.

I think the Budapest Gambit is a fine opening for Black, provided that Black is prepared.  In this position, White has a small advantage the he/she must struggle to hold onto.  The smallest mistake leads to disaster for both sides, but accurate play also grants winning chances for both sides unless you are a computer.  

Analysis by Stockfish 6 64:

+/=  (0.41)    Depth: 40/51   00:28:06  12617MN

GOB, your move order, deleting the first four moves, makes this a challenge to comment on. From the starting position, 7.e3! is recommended by Avrukh. Black probably castled too early and is already in some trouble there. But, it probably just transposes to other ...d6 lines (which I don't like for Black). 11...b6?! is indeed questionable, as Karpov-Short showed. If white just takes the B on c5 instead of 13.Nc1 (10.Nc1 in your move list), White should have a really nice edge. Here's the game:

It looks like Bishop is finally beginning to realise that the Modern Benoni is more playable than the Budapest. He's even referencing games that I mentioned earlier in the thread!

How is this a Budapest Gambit position?