The Bg4 From's Gambit: Marshall variation
After spending some time revisiting From's Gambit, I thought I'd be prepared to play 1 f4 against my roommate. However, instead of playing either the Lasker variation (4…g5) or the Mestel variation (4…Nf6), Greg played 4…Bg4! Faced with this suprise variation and given Greg's strength, I crumbled in 17 moves (download this embarrassing game in PGN format).
Since Taylor doesn't mention this variation in Bird's Opening, I decided to do a little research. ChessGames.com only has seven 4…Bg4 games in their database: two wins for White, four wins for Black and one draw.
So I plugged the position into Fritz 9, ran infinite analysis and it gave the following two lines:
Unclear, but with a 0.38 advantage to White: 5 e3 Qd7 6 Be2 Nc6 7 0-0 0-0-0 8 Na3 Nf6 9 Nc4 Be7 10 d3
Equal, with a 0.24 advantage to White: 5 e4 Nf6 6 d4 Nxe4 7 Bd3 Nf6 8 Qe2+ Be7 9 0-0 0-0 10 Nbd2 Re8
There is only one 5 e3 game at ChessGames.com, Albin vs Marshall, and Marshall wins (though they don't play the line recommended by Fritz). Since Marshall is the only player represented twice in ChessGames.com collection of seven 4…Bg4 games, I've decided to call this the Marshall variation.
The move that I want to play, 5 g3, Fritz sees as equal, but with a very slight edge to Black. So for now, 5 e3 seems to best way to respond.
Clearly, more research remains to be done on this line…
Related tags: birds, froms-gambit, gambits
4 Comments
Jump to comment form | comments rss [?] | trackback uri [?]