Thanks for this linksspringer -- look forward to learning more!

There's been quite a lot of incidental comment about this defence, but so far as I know no dedicated thread, so I thought I'd start one. I placed it here rather than in Daring Defences since I imagine the Balogh is more commonly reached from 1 e4 than from 1 d4 (or 1 Nf3). The main continuations are 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bd3 and 3 ef Bf5, and useful easy-to-find online articles by Keith Hayward and Stefan Bücker will quickly put anyone unfamiliar with the defence in the picture.

Let me say at once that, after 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bd3 fe 5 Ne4, thus far I'm a fan of the combative 5 ...Ne4 6 Be4 g6!? rather than of the alternative, 5 ...Nc6, whereupon 6 Nf6 ef 7 c3! Be6 (what else?) 8 Ne2 seems to me to leave Black with a thankless position. I'm ready to believe this can be defended, but Black is very passively placed and has to keep constant watch on the kingside -- not what I'm looking for in any defence, let alone a 'tricky' one!

But I think it's very possible that White's best options are the less advertised ones. On 3 ef Bf5 4 c4, 4 ...e5!? is meant to be OK, but what about 4 Nf3 Nf6 (not forced of course) 5 c4? Hayward skates over the rather strange game Keemink--Balogh which went 5 ...Qd7 6 Be2 e6 7 0-0 Be7 8 Nc3 0-0 9 Re1 Nc6 10 a3 Ng4 11 h3, draw agreed -- but just this, even without Black's (to me) incomprehensible tenth move, looks to me slightly grim for Black. I wondered therefore if the ...e5 idea could be used in this line too. It doesn't seem to work on move five after 6 de Qe7 7 Qb3! c5 (I haven't looked at 7 ...b6 yet) 8 Nc3, but maybe on move six ... (Of course there's 6 Bd3 to look at as well as 6 Be2.)

So, is the Balogh an interesting dynamic option, or one-trick-pony Balogh-ney?