art of planning (Bishop opening) part 12/25

Please note that all the info. in this post are taken from outside sources, they will be mentionned in the last section (special thanks and others sources section)..AND DON'T FORGET TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR COMMENTS UNDER EACH DIAGRAMS!!! 

                                                         Bishop opening

    The Bishop's Opening is one of the oldest openings to be analyzed.  This opening was studied by some famous player like Lucena, Ruy Lopez, Larsen and Philidor.  Although, the Bishop opening is relatively an uncommun opening today especially in GrandMasters Level... 

 Zoom out section:







 

In this post we will study 4 differents variations of this opening.  They will be the Ponziani gambit, the Urusov gambit, the Greco gambit and finally the Panov variation.

Zoom in section:

1-Ponziani gambit variation section:

Most beginners play 2.Bc4 with the sole purpose of playing 3. Qh5 and then 4. Qxf7 checkmate. Pretty quickly we all learn that the Fool's mate doesn't happen too often when you play strong opponents, so we abandon the 3.Qh5 first and then in most of the cases the 2.Bc4 as well and switch to more sophisticated openings.  But 2.Bc4 is a perfectly good move. And even 3.Qh5 can be a good move in certain situation.  Just imagine these moves: 1e4 e5 2 Bc4 Be7?. Here 3. Qh5! is the best move which wins a pawn right away!  The most popular Black's response is 2...Nf6 where White has a choice.  The move 3. Nc3 leads to the Vienna game.  The solid 3.d3 leads in most of the cases to a slow positional struggle.  But what if we play 3.d4?  This move immediately creates some problems for our opponents to solve.  Let's examine Black's possible responses.

2- Urusov Gambit variation section:

    It is better for Black to capture the d4 pawn by 3...exd4.  Now the tempting 4.e5 isn't good due to a standard Black reply 4...d5!  Instead of 4.e5 White should keep developing his pieces by 4.Nf3.  But doesn't this move drop the e4 pawn?  What happens after 4...Nxe4?  This is the so-called Urusov Gambit. It is amazing how quickly Black can find himself in a lost position if he doesn't know what he is doing.  After 5. Qxd4 (the Queen is coming again!) it takes just one wrong move 5...Nd6? and the game is suddenly over.  Let's see this game for example..

     Of course, the natural move 5...Nf6 is much better than 5...Nd6.  Even in this case Black is not out of the woods yet, as the next short game demonstrates...

     The Urusov gambit has been known for about 200 years already but is not very popular these days.  It must be refuted, and no Grandmaster would play it, right?  Guess again!  As the next game shows, even 2600+ GMs use this lethal weapon sometimes. The following game doesn't have a fantastic combo or unbelievable sacrifice, but the whole attack was so instructive, let's take a look on it...

3-Greco gambit variation section:

4-Panov variation section:

Youtube "excellent link" section:

part1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHFY23CqbqA

part2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAoq7QozzY

part3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5zFE4Nnr2o

To be avoided section:

Personnal's games section:

More about planning section:

White:

- White attacks Black's f7-square and prevents Black from advancing his d-pawn to d5. By ignoring the beginner's rule, "develop Knights before Bishops ", White leaves his f-pawn unblocked allowing the possibility of playing f2-f4.

Black:

- In the first time, Black has many possible responses on the second move. As shown below, the Bishop's Opening offers opportunities to transpose to several other open games.

- More specificly, in the Urusov gambit, Black's must avoid to fall into a lack of development and inability to castle on the Kingside.

Quebecor's games section:





Special thanks section:

I just wanna said a BIG SPECIAL THANKS at Borgqueen, thanks my friend for give me some good ideas for the structure of this post..

AND ALSO, a BIG THANKS at:  

thamizhan, Gserper, Arunabi, FM_Eric_Schiller, mircea_1956, ChessRenewal, Pogape and Oldbill !! Thank you all for make this topic possible!!! IMP!!!!! NOTE...The thamizhan, Gserper, Arunabi, FM_Eric_Schiller content's was a GREAT HELP!!! THANKS..

Others references:

-ChessMaster 10

-Fritz 10

-Chess books       - no chess book was use here..

                         - fqe website database

- youtube                                                          

 www.pogonina.com

-wikipedia

That's ALL for the Bishop's opening!.. I hope you had appreciated ;)

 C_H_E_S_STAR

i dont understand why u dont mention the main variations...

I mean :

And if black wants to play specific variations against bishop gambit :