How's this: Let's play an unrated two game correspondence match. I'll play the Black side of the Budapest, you play the Black side of the Albin. We both can use engines, so the games won't be determined by a simple tactical oversight.
Btw, I don't play the Budapest as Black, so if you play the Albin you may have a slightly better chance of surviving.
I don't unfortunately have the time to do this type of (admittedly interesting) research, @SmyslovFan.
I busted the Albin with a line that Sam Palatnik showed me, and since then, Chris Ward has recommended it in Play the Queen's Gambit. Instead of the "old fashioned" 4.Nf3 and Fianchettoing the Bishop, play 4.a3!! The idea is simple, you are going after playing e3, but we all know that the immediate 4.e3 is busted after 4...Bb4+ 5.Bd2 dxe3 6.Bxb4 (6.fxe3 is not quite as bad, but still White's going to lose) exf2+ 7.Ke2 fxg1=N+ -+.
With 4.a3, White's plan is to play 5.e3, and Black simply doesn't have time to build up on d4 and hold it there. He either has to trade it off eventually, or outright lose the pawn. Normally he relies on this pawn to stop White's development.
I'm working off sheer memory as my scorebook is at home and I'm not, but I seem to recall the game going as follows:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5? 3.dxe5 d4 4.a3!! Nc6 5.e3 Bf5 6.Nf3 d3 7.Nc3 Qd7 8.Nd5 and the d3-pawn is toast! White won on move 29.
Interesting.
I know this isn't on the list but eccentric English IM Mike Basman came up with 1.a3 -any 2.h3 - any 3.c4 and christened it 'the Creepy -Crawly' 
I mean its got to be terrible, right?
1.d5 2.h3 b5 3.c4 doesn't look good.
Worst to best:
1. Damiano
2. Elephant Gambit
3. Halloween
4. Englund
5. Greco countergambit
1.d5 2.h3 b5 3.c4 doesn't look good.
I had a look and it seems like if he couldn't get 3.c4 in he went for 3.d3 - heres a game he drew against a GM
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055582
@Vease That game is against my old teacher!
@ozzie...must have been an off day for Dmitri I think, although Basman's 'terrible' openings quite often caught higher rated players out. He was actually GM class himself but would rather plough his own bizarre paths in the openings that cost him rating points...
I just put Gotham because that's where Ozzie Cobblepot is from. I took lessons from Dmitry when I was a kid growing up in Chicago.
On a holiday in Florence I met a German. We played a lot of chess during the siesta. He played the Amar or Paris opening.
Should this one be in the list?
Sure, add it in, and rank it.
Looking to the Amar opening, I have found the Paris gambit. A gambit in that opening?
I would reorder the rank like:
1. Damiano,
2. Paris Gambit, because white makes all the effort to castle quickly demolishing totally unnecessary his own pawn structure in front of the king,
3. Irish Gambit, giving a knight for a pawn and said to be weaker then the Halloween Gambit which is doing the same a move later.
4. Latvian Gambit (= Greco counter gambit), and
5. Englund Gambit.
I removed the Elephant Gambit, because it starts the same as the Latvian Gambit, but does not open the king side. I expect 2. ... f5 to be worse then 2. ... d5.
Any gambit against Xenia would be an unwise opening.
While it's not their style, a Xenia-themed spinoff (presumably a prequel) would have been awesome.
I busted the Albin with a line that Sam Palatnik showed me, and since then, Chris Ward has recommended it in Play the Queen's Gambit. Instead of the "old fashioned" 4.Nf3 and Fianchettoing the Bishop, play 4.a3!! The idea is simple, you are going after playing e3, but we all know that the immediate 4.e3 is busted after 4...Bb4+ 5.Bd2 dxe3 6.Bxb4 (6.fxe3 is not quite as bad, but still White's going to lose) exf2+ 7.Ke2 fxg1=N+ -+.
With 4.a3, White's plan is to play 5.e3, and Black simply doesn't have time to build up on d4 and hold it there. He either has to trade it off eventually, or outright lose the pawn. Normally he relies on this pawn to stop White's development.
I'm working off sheer memory as my scorebook is at home and I'm not, but I seem to recall the game going as follows:
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5? 3.dxe5 d4 4.a3!! Nc6 5.e3 Bf5 6.Nf3 d3 7.Nc3 Qd7 8.Nd5 and the d3-pawn is toast! White won on move 29.
This is a great recommendation line. Your particular line is not critical though.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 4.a3 Nc6 5.e3 Bf5? (seems to be rather an old line. Moro's choice is 5...a5) 6.Nf3 d3? (black's best here is dxe3, showing that Bf5 is inaccurate) 7.Nc3 Qd7? (Nge7 but black is still very bad here) 8.Nd5 (Rybka claims that 8.e4 (+1.43) is stronger, but 8.Nd5 (+1.07) is second choice and still good enough to win the d3 pawn, and with it black's entire game plan.
I see the main (critical) line as 4.a3 Nc6 5.e3 a5 6.Nf3 Bc5 7.exd4 Bxd4 8.Be2 with a nice 0.58 edge to white, but it's probably a good idea to look at how Morozevich's game's proceeded from that point.
Regarding this recommended line of @ThrillerFan, I played exactly that line (of 4.a3 and 5.e3), but I rather stumbled into it. OTB, I hadn't prepared anything for the Albin, so I figured "what can I do to get some sort of a playable middlegame while taking the opponent out of their typical book".
I guess it didn't work very well. It went 4.a3 Nc6 5.e3 a5 -- I remember being very surprised that the black position has time to play a move like 5...a5 -- and then I blundered with 6.exd4 instead of 6.Nf3.
what about the Blackmar-Diemer?
I saw a GM play 2. ... e6 instead of capturing
What do you consider the critical line against the Albin? Or some critical games, if not a line.