game is no guarantee of avoidance. For example, after 1.d4
d5 2.e4 e6 White can play 3.Be3 tempting Black to submit to
3...dxe4 leading into 3.Nc3 Nf6 5.f3; in the Caro-Kann
Defense 1.d4 d5 2.e4 c6 the BDG can be reached with 3.Nc3
and if …dxe4 4.f3; and in the unusual Veresov Opening, after
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e4, again, the BDG has been reached.
Rethinking The Queen’s Pawn Game – Part II
by Terese and David W. Hatch
QP Ì
The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit has an interesting and
entertaining history, a fervent following and a multifaceted
reputation. Its detractors will call it dubious for White and its
devotees will label it dangerous for Black. Its following is
fanatical and depending upon which blog or book or
magazine you are reading, the BDG has been called both
spurious and sound. Much like the Colle, the Grob, the St.
George and the New York Yankees, the Blackmar-Diemer
Gambit is loved by its fans and mocked by its critics as it is
both one of the most misunderstood and maligned of chess
opening systems and one of the most feared.
The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit
1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3
“At amateur level, all openings are sound.”
Lombardy
A gambit is an opening ploy in which one side graces the
other side with the gift of a pawn. The gambit injects
excitement into the game as early as the second move; it
unbalances the position; it immediately puts the question to
the opponent to make a critical decision; and it gives the
gambiteer a chance to steer the game into a direction he
wishes it to go. While gambits are not for the weak-kneed or
the faint-of-heart, neither should one be too cavalier about
playing a gambit. As Siegbert Tarrasch said, playing a
gambit “to acquire a reputation of being a dashing player
[comes] at the cost of losing a game.” Not all grandmasters
had the same opinion as Tarrasch. As Jose Capablanca
pointed out, there is honor in playing and accepting a gambit.
When confronted with Frank Marshall’s taunt in the original
Marshall Gambit game of 1909, Capablanca intuitively
declared, “I felt that my judgment and skill were being
challenged by a player who had every reason to fear both. I
considered the position and then decided that I was honor
bound, so to speak, to take the pawn.” But perhaps it is the
inspirational words of Theodo re Roosevelt that best captures
the philosophy of a gambit: “It is not the critic who counts,
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or
where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit
belongs to the man who . . . at the best, knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never
be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory
nor defeat.”1
The history of the BDG dates back to the early 1880s when
American Armand Edward Blackmar introduced his analysis
of the opening moves 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3 in an article he
wrote for a chess magazine. The sacrificial concept of this
opening along with its uncharted theory and the tactical
opportunities the gambit produced inspired and confounded
chess players until the turn of the century when an antidote to
the lethal BDG appeared in the form of a counter gambit:
3…e5. (An example of how Black usurps all of White’s
initiative is Walter v. Baum, 1984: 1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3 e5
4.fxe4 Qh4+ 5.Kd2 Nf6 6.Bd3 Nxe4+ 7.Bxe4 Qxe4 8.dxe5
Bg4 9.Nf3 Nc6 10.Nc3 O-O-O+ 0-1).
Then, in 1932, a
significant theoretical novelty appeared by way of German
tactician, Emil Joseph Diemer, who breathed new life into the
opening by interpolating the move 3.Nc3 before f3 to counter
the 3…e5 refutation. From 1932 to 1959, Diemer enjoyed
enormous success with the BDG, and the strategy and
tactics of the gambit forced players of the Black pieces to
develop a variety of creative countermeasures. A century
after Blackmar and 50 years after Diemer first played it,
another resourceful American, Charles Diebert, again gave
credibility and respect to the BDG by fearlessly employing it
at the highest levels against opponents like Silman,
Benjamin, Gulko, Kudrin, Rohde and Bisguier. Today, the
BDG still enjoys success and notoriety in club, tournament,
correspondence and OTB theme tournaments where some
configuration or another of the BDG is being accepted,
declined, deferred or avoided.
One opening that is a gambit in the boldest sense of the word
is the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. In the Blackmar-Diemer
Gambit, White intends to play in true gambit style by willingly
forfeiting a pawn with no intention of recouping it. White’s
follow up plan is to take control of open files for his rooks and
long diagonals for his bishops. To be fair, however, Black is
not totally without compensation. Accepting the pawn in the
BDG will give Black an immediate material advantage. His
goal will be to consolidate his position with an eye toward
using that extra pawn to his advantage in the endgame.
The following games give us a sense of (as Diemer said)
“playing for mate from the first move.”
Armand Edward Blackmar
Farrar
New Orleans, 1882
The genesis of the BDG.
The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is an anomaly in chess
opening theory. The paradox of this opening is that, at first
blush, White appears to be sacrificing a center pawn when in
fact it is the sacrifice of the pawn on f3 that defines this
gambit. On its face the sacrifice appears to be unsound and
the games that usually ensue are played out in a
swashbuckling style capable of producing wild, Tal-like
sacrifices and tactics. Black can try to avoid the BlackmarDiemer by playing a quieter, closed opening such as the
French Defense or the Caro-Kann Defense, however, the
BDG is so transpositional that even shifting to an e-pawn
1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3 exf3 4.Nxf3 e6 5.Bd3
For the price of a pawn White has a substantial lead in
development. Black has expended time and given up space.
5...Nf6 6.c3 Be7 7.0–0 Nc6 8.Nbd2 h6 9.Ne4
White’s queen and bishops are raking the board, his rook is
on a half-open file and his knights are in position to initiate a
winning textbook combination.
9...0–0 10.Neg5 hxg5 11.Nxg5
White’s attack is pure and his plan is simple and
straightforward.
1
Citizenship in a Republic - a speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, France by
Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910.
12