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Thursday, March 14, 2019

Duras Gambit aka The Fred

     I have posted on the two players of a bygone era involved in the following game before. Oldrich Duras was a leading Czech player of the early 20th century and Ossip Bernstein was one of the world’s best players in the early 1900s. 
     1.e4 f5 is known bt a number of names: Duras Gambit, the Fred, Reversed From and the Tiers Counter-Gambit. Whatever name you call it, it is a discredited defense. White gets a clear advantage, but that does not necessarily mean he wins the game. 2.f4 transposes into the Bird Opening Swiss Gambit normally reached by 1.f4 f5 2.e4, while 2.d4 transposes into the Dutch Defense Staunton Gambit. 
     Occasionally this defense is discussed on forums with some players even insisting it should be perfectly sound, even 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Ke7 which is known as the Southern Fred. 
     The idea is to sacrifice 1 or 2 Ps and castle by hand. Logic says that simply cannot be true! One witty poster observed, “Anyone who would play it should probably be placed on suicide watch.” And, “If stupid were chocolate, this opening would be a Godiva boutique. We only see this defense when someone goes off their medications against medical advice.” 
     One must be aware that these unusual openings often have a hidden trap, but if the opponent avoids them with careful play he will have a superior position. 
     In his course, Unsound Openings and How to Exploit Them, GM Roman Dzindzichashvili shows how to tackle this gambit. His method is about as straightforward as you can get. After 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Nf6 3.Nf3 d5 he recommend simply defending the P with 4.Nh4. Black gets advantage in development but white quickly catches up. 
     In the following game Bernstein took a different approach to defending the P by playing 4.Bd3. A cursory glance at the position seems to show that white’s pieces were gummed up and Duras had successfully occupied the center. But white’s pieces had a lot of latent energy and were aimed at black’s weakened King. It didn’t help that Duras ignored white’s P on e6. 
     After a seesaw middlegane Bernstein blundered and had to give up his Q leaving him with a R and B against Duras’ Q, yet he somehow managed to draw.
     As with many inferior openings there is no immediate crushing refutation and often the superior side only gets positional compensation. Most club players have little concept of positional niceties and so are often unable to exploit them. Thus, the game hinges on who makes the last blunder. If it’s the gambiteer’s opponent the win is chalked up to the soundness of the gambit. 

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