This is (for now) the last instalment of our mini-course on the Benkö Gambit. This beautiful opening can help to improve various aspects of your. Studying a good opening has value in itself, and learning how to put your pieces on good squares helps to gain strategic understanding.
Moreover, Benko-positions often contain hidden and beautiful combinations and studying the opening helps to improve your tactical skills.
Last but not least, your endgame skills improve when you study how top players sometimes willingly enter endgames with a pawn down and then proceed to win them.
In the previous videos, we looked at the opening from the perspective of the black player but as it usually helps to see things from the other side, I would like to end with the analysis of a difficult, but very instructive game between Dutch Grandmaster Jeroen Piket and former FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov.
Piket, who has long since retired from his active career, managed to overpower the Bulgarian top player in 1999. Do you see how White made the most of the clear positional advantages he has in the diagrammed position?
This week’s show (for Premium Members only)
