TonyRo wrote on 10/08/25 at 16:20:08:

White repertoire vs black repertoire reminds me of Mad Magazine's Spy vs Spy. I see several ways out. Pessimism a la Petrosian (where I usually end up): White repertoire gives no advantage and black repertoire doesn't equalize. Willful blindness, names withheld: Black repertoire carefully doesn't mention the advantageous white line(s), similar gap in white repertoire. Avrukh is following the theoretician's way: Yesterday white was better, today we have improvements showing black equalizes, tune in tomorrow for more improvements when white will be better again.

fluffy wrote on 10/08/25 at 15:53:03:

Gotta cover the whole market! 

fluffy wrote on 10/08/25 at 15:53:03:

I do too - it used to be much easier with the TWIC utility that would simply allow you to click boxes for every issue you wanted to download and it would download them all and merge them into one PGN for you. FWIW, Chessbase does have ways to filter out blitz and rapid games using a search masK: https://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15/Eng/index.html?filtering_a_games_list.htm

Effectiveness may vary. I maintain the lichess Master's DB (which contains only high quality games between strong players, no online blitz, etc, and generally just have to use search terms like "Tuesday", "chess.com", etc, to pick them all out. It's a real delight. 

fluffy wrote on 10/08/25 at 15:53:03:

This is a true KID player.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 10/06/25 at 21:05:50:

Replying to myself.
Avrukh also introduces his courses on youtube.

• https://youtu.be/RUq-axRPFSo (20:46) Black most aggressive opening against 1.d4 - Benko Gambit
• https://youtu.be/dILEvcp49yE (12:46) Black is great in two major anti-Benko variations!

Coverage of 5.e3 is from 11:45 to 16:24 of the first video.

fluffy wrote on 10/06/25 at 20:23:35:

Black most aggressive opening against 1.d4 - Benko Gambit. Full repertoire
2025/03/06
https://ask-avrukh.com/ShowPgn.aspx?id=89

kylemeister wrote on 10/06/25 at 18:30:05:

It isn't officially a ChessPub thread unless kylemeister comes in and digs up a citation or two. Thank you! 

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 10/06/25 at 18:34:52:

I think once you get to about the 4th or 5th page with zero bold moves, 40 moves deep in the 4th sub-variation, it might as well be Greek! 

(warning: history)

TonyRo wrote on 10/06/25 at 17:07:37:

Incidentally 8...c4 was given as "!" and "with compensation" by Tukmakov in the ancient green ECO (1979).

Tim Harding had some material on "the old 5...e6" in his 1973 book Counter Gambits, concluding with this: "It appears from these examples that 5...e6 may be playable, but as yet there have been no grandmaster games and judgement should be deferred. Benko played the move in the 1966 US Open, but his opponent was not a master and the game not critical."

(? -- I find no such Benko game)

I kind of agree that 5.e3 can be a smidge of a buzzkill, but I think there are a few buzzkillers in most of the options you mention if you assume really well prepared opponents that play perfectly, e.g. the Modern Main Line of the Benoni basically requires the ...b5 sac and then is not a ton of fun, the Bayonet or h3 lines in the KID can be a smidge one-sided, etc. Our tastes might differ of course. 

The g6 lines don't necessarily look like inferior Benkos to me, but hybrids between the ...e6 lines and the ...g6 lines, which makes them a smidge confusing to conceptually unravel. They're very complicated, and both Avrukh and Kotronias/Ivanov invest a ton of time in showing they're playable and interesting. If I had to win this would be the route I'd go. 

One line I have looked at a smidge and might be worth considering is 5.e3 e6!? and then:

6.dxe6 fxe6 7.Nc3 d5 8.Nf3 c4!? is not very popular but scores very well in the lichess DB. A few correspondence games have followed the line below and have tried different ways of untangling on move 18:



Not an amazing winning try for Black if White knows it all quite deeply but hey, you're Black. 

6.Nc3 exd5 7.Nxd5 Bb7 8.Nxf6+ Qxf6 9.Nf3 Be7 10.Be2 O-O 11.O-O seems like a position that most Benko players, at least the ones with a disposition towards the usual ...e6 positions (this is not generally me), would enjoy.