Pressure on d5 in Benko Gambit with 5. b6

Not too long ago, chess.com's own GM Roman Dzindzichashvili released a video titled "Benko Gambit Destruction". In this video, he elaborates on the line 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. b6!?. He demonstrates that if black tries to develop queenside pressure the way (s)he does in 5. ... bxa6 lines, white can develop some promising play on the queenside connected with a benoni-like Nf3-d2-c5 maneuver. This is an invaluable contribution to the chess world. I believe that we can complement Dzindzi's video by analyzing black's idea of putting pressure on d5.

The position where our discussion begins is 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. b6!?. The central feature of this position is a slight space advantage for white due to his/her pawn on d5. Hence, one of black's opening goals is to stop white from consolidating her/his space advantage. A straightforward way to try and accomplish this is to put maximum pressure on the d5 pawn. A formation for black that is consistent with this plan would feature some combination of a pawn on e6, a knight on f6, a knight on b6, a bishop on b7, and a queen on a8. It could be worth noting that white's b6-pawn temporarily stops white's queen from attacking the b7 square.

Of course, white is not about to stay put and beat hay. (S)he might try to protect b6 pawn with his/her a-pawn. If caught off guard, black might have to stop white's a-pawn by pushing her/his own a-pawn. This would weaken the b5 square. While this is not always harmful, black should be aware of this possibility. Also, in the long run, white can try to develop queenside play with the maneuver Ng1-f3-d2-c4.

I would like to make a humble request to all readers of this post who have some free time on hand: I would appreciate it if you could please post something that, in your opinion, contributes to this discussion. Thank you very much.

Nothing extraordinary, just take the pawn Qxb6, it's as simple as that.

Estargon: nice strategical explanation! Though I sill think that Qxb6 is as good d6. Let's play this game and try to put me in trouble after I play Qxb6.

As black when white plays 5 b6  I prefer 5... e6 .  For those who want to decline the Benko gambit there are several good options for white at move 4 :  Nd2, Nf3, Qc2 with 4 Nf3 scoring the best of those 3 with 60% !  

If you prefer to decline the gambit at move 5 you have : b6, e3 and f3 .... I used 5 e3 in my only game against a GM ( in a Benko ) and managed to draw. 

Thanks for posting. I agree with the idea of just taking the pawn. After that, black can probably still pursue the same plan of putting pressure on d5 because the queen is en route to a8, from where it can gang up on d5 with a pawn on e6, a bishop on b7, and knights on f6 and b6.

Thanks for posting. What you suggest is a very natural and effective way of developing black's pieces. What bothers me, though, is that white might have the ability to later play b7 and Qb6, hitting the bishop. This could somewhat disrupt black's ideas of putting pressure on d5. For instance, forming a queen-behind-bishop battery on the long diagonal could become very cumbersome. With a white pawn on b6, though, black could comfortably keep a bishop on b7 and toy around with a maneuver like Rc8, Qc7, Qb8, Qa8. I'm just brainstorming, but I would appreciate a little help developing these ideas.

Thanks for posting. Interesting options for white. I currently prefer to play 4. cxb5 and meet 4. ... a6 with either b6 or bxa6.

5. b6 is the decline benko gambit, but I think 4. Nf3 is much better than cxb5...or even it is better for white to not continue with the benko gambit but rather transposed to english...

5. b6 is what i see most often.