Alex Yermolinsky Budapest A52

I continue to be curious about top level players who have ventured into the swashbuckling world of the Budapest Gambit A52. Another well known gradmaster who has played the Budapest A52 at some point in his career is Alex Yermolinsky. I have a fascination with games where players display tactical wizardry. In part because I am so poor at it, I admire those who are able to pull out stuff like that in serious tournament games. Don't get me wrong, I have studied the science of chess tactics. In particular I found the book by Yuri Averbach - "Tactics for Advanced Players", to be very illuminating on the subject. But still, I struggle to create the preconditions for highly tactical play on the board. Click here for games by Alex Yermolinsky playing the black side of the Budapest Gambit A52.

Is The Budapest Gambit A52 Back?

When an opening system falls into disuse, its usually because the top grandmasters of the day have found some deficiency in it and no longer employ it in their tournament games. However when you begin to see top grandmasters revisit a once abandoned opening system, it is time to reappraise that system to see what's new that has been developed about it. Playing black against the Queen's Gambit, I have often been a practitioner of the Budapest A52. It's a tricky system that rewards those who are careful enough to play it correctly. I have gone down quickly a number of times simply for not following the correct move order. Just a few days ago, I began to wonder whether or not anyone in the top echelons of today's chess praxis, still adopts the Budapest A52. I did not have to wonder for long. In the recent Amber rapid tournament, Mamedyarov used the Budapest A52 to score a brilliant win against none other than the ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik. Click here for a link to the Chessgames database of games by Mamedyarov playing the black side of the Budapest A52. Yes, including the recent victory over Kramnik. Enjoy.

Coffee Shop Chess 02

Here are a couple more games from Starbucks in Forestville, MD. The interesting background to these games is that my opponents seem to do much better against me in blitz chess. Most of the time, my clock will run out while I was deeply engrossed in calculations of interesting variations on the board. On these particular occassions, I was challenged to play them "slow" chess, so the moves can be recorded and they can prove to me how really strong they were. I was at first reluctant to this because I knew quite well that their playing strengths in regular chess were such that I would be proving nothing. Nevertheless, I agreed to play a couple of games. The first one is me playing black against Tony. Now, Tony had just announced that he has recently mastered the King's Gambit, and dared anyone to respond with 1...e5 against his 1.e4. So I decided to call his bluff:

In the following game, I was playing white against Little Man (that's his nickname of course, no bearing on his size or anything - actually I have often wondered how he came about that nickname, I guess I will ask him the next time I see him). He accepted all the gambit pawns that I offered him, but found out that the outcome was not too pretty. I should note that subsequent to this game, he has always hesitated to take my gambit pawns!