Bird's Opening

[Duff McKagan]

I have not had time to annotate the following game yet but here it is to look at.

My opponent is a correspondence IM. He missed a stunning win at one point.

His blunder was a beauty.

Ireneusz Nowak is a comp, his blunder (like some of his previous ones) are because he does everything on the computer and sending such a quick reply in a winning position before checking it, he put the wrong piece on e4.

[Glenno]

For the record, here are the statistics with 1. f4 as its opening move for games until 1990 in www.chesslab.com.

Bird's opening: 1. f4 (White 39%; Black 37% draw 24%)
Bird's opening: 1. f4 d5 (White 39%; Black 35% draw 26%)
Bird's opening (From gambit): 1. f4 e5 (White 40%; Black 41% draw 19%)
Mujannah opening: 1. f4 d5 2. c4 (White 43%; Black 41% draw 16%)
Bird's opening (Williams gambit): 1. f4 d5 2. e4 (White 69%; Black 7% draw 24%)
Bird's opening (Lasker variation): 1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 c5 (No games)
Bird's opening (From gambit, Lasker variation): 1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Bxd6 4. Nf3 g5 (White 42%; Black 43% draw 15%)
Bird's opening (From gambit, Lipke variation): 1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Bxd6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. d4 (White 50%; Black 30% draw 20%)

Here are four games (all since 1991) that are wins by Black against the Williams Gambit that ended no later than Black's 25th move. There were no such games before then.

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[Kevin Bonham]

Interesting and lively From's Gambit game played in a G60 event at the HICC this week between the current state champion and the current state #3.

Black played 12...Nf3+ a move too late, the previous move it appears to win.

Nigel Frame (1851) - Peter Billam (1934)

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[Kevin Bonham]

*bump*

For the sake of weirdness I should mention a really bizarre anti-Birds line I researched ages ago. It goes: 1.f4 d5 2.g3 h5. Do not adjust your set. Black aims to push ...h4, sac the exchange on h4 then wallop White's king all over the board. I think that White can escape and win with precise play but there's not much margin for error.

There is a discussion of this line in Gary Lane's current Chesscafe column, near the bottom. Gary analyses 1 f4 d5 2 g3 h5 3 Nf3 h4 4.Nxh4 and then looks at both ...Rxh4 and ...e5. He prefers the latter and annotates a game played with it, but evaluates the exchange sac thus:

True, there is nothing clear cut for White, who faces a tough struggle, but also there is no obvious route to victory for Black, although it will be easier to develop smoothly. I reckon in practical chess Black has the edge because White needs to take his time deciding where best to post his pieces, while Black just needs to get his pieces into play and castle queenside.