For tactical e4 players: what are your choices against annoying positional openings?
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Feb 26, 2022
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#22
2.Nf3, b5 is pretty grim against the London. You spend hours wishing you could move your pawn back to b6. I would suggest 2.Nf3, e6 and if 3.c4, then 3… c5 4.d5, b5 the Blumenfeld Gambit. It is at least as good as the Budapest. You could also reach it by 2… c5 3.d5, e6 4.c4, b5 but 4.Nc3 is a serious alternative. Or 2… c5 3.d5, b5 4.c4, e6 but here 4.Bg5 is pretty dangerous.
When they play positional,I play positional too.Its because defenses are meant to move away enemy pieces.
StevieG65 wrote:
2.Nf3, b5 is pretty grim against the London. You spend hours wishing you could move your pawn back to b6. I would suggest 2.Nf3, e6 and if 3.c4, then 3… c5 4.d5, b5 the Blumenfeld Gambit. It is at least as good as the Budapest. You could also reach it by 2… c5 3.d5, e6 4.c4, b5 but 4.Nc3 is a serious alternative. Or 2… c5 3.d5, b5 4.c4, e6 but here 4.Bg5 is pretty dangerous.
I once worked out a positional pawn sacrifice for white against that, playing otb, and won with it. The alternative is that white takes everything in sight in a particular order and has a winning position, so GMs never play it, that I know of. Modern Benoni is sounder than Blumenfeld and that's saying something.
#27
The original poster is a fan of the Budapest Gambit 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5, but that does not happen if white plays 2 Nf3, so his question was what to play after 2 Nf3 to steer towards sharp positions like in the Budapest Gambit. I suggest 2...b5.
Well, I just used the onboard analysis tool and it prefers Bf4, c3 or Nbd2. In my opinion, 3.Bf4 is the best of those, but I don't think any of them are as good as 3. e3. I think that's really strong against 2. ... b5.