In our series about the Benko Gambit we have seen that black's pawn sacrifice on the third move often leads to positions in which Black creates enormous pressure on the queenside. The rapid, harmonious development of Black's pieces often is in stark contrast to White's rook on a1 and White's bishop on c1 which remain for a long time on their starting squares.
Club players often go wrong under pressure and this is another aspect worth highlighting when discussing this opening. Even strong players often have a hard time to coordinate their pieces with White.
The diagram shows a position from a game between former top-10 player Lajos Portisch from Hungary and Evgeny Vasiukov from the Soviet Union. The game is a good illustration how even such a strong player as Portisch sometimes had great difficulties to find a recipe against the Benko.
Even though the queens were exchanged and White is still a pawn up Black has excellent chances of winning. Do you see how Vasiukov presented his opponent with unsolvable problems?
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