Hungarian Opening

The Hungarian Opening (1.g3), also called the King's Fianchetto Opening and the Benko Opening, prepares to fianchetto the king's bishop on g2. It ranks fifth among White's first moves, far behind 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3, and can transpose into almost any opening in which White fianchettoes the king's bishop.

Origins

Annotating the 1828 correspondence match between Madras and Hyderabad, the Madras player Ghulam Kassim noted that many Indian players began their games this way. Richard Réti played 1.g3 several times at Baden-Baden 1925, with mixed results. The move received renewed attention when Pal Benko used it to beat Bobby Fischer and Mikhail Tal at the 1962 Candidates Tournament in Curaçao; he chose it the first eleven times he had White in that event. Viktor Korchnoi played it once against Anatoly Karpov in the 1978 World Championship.

The idea

White puts the bishop on the long diagonal with Bg2 and prepares e4, since the bishop supports that square. Nick de Firmian writes that 1.g3 can, and usually does, transpose into other fianchetto openings, such as the Catalan, the King's Indian Attack and some lines of the English Opening. For this reason the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings has no specific code for it beyond A00. The positions are generally closed.

Main lines

• 1...d5 2.Bg2, then 2...c6, the Slav Formation, 2...e6, the Catalan Formation, or 2...c5, the Reversed Modern Defense. With Nf3, O-O and d3 White often reaches a King's Indian Attack, as in 1.g3 d5 2.Bg2 Nf6 3.Nf3 c6 4.O-O Bg4 5.d3 Nbd7 6.Nbd2 e5 7.e4.
• 1...Nf6, the Indian Defense.
• 1...c5, the Sicilian Invitation.
• 1...g6, the Symmetrical Variation; with c4 the game can turn into an English Opening, for example 1.g3 g6 2.Bg2 Bg7 3.c4 e5 4.Nc3 d6.
• 1...f5, a Dutch set-up.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

• Very flexible: White can choose the opening later depending on Black's set-up.
• The bishop goes to the long diagonal and supports a later e4.

Weaknesses

• Because it transposes so easily, White needs to know the fianchetto systems it leads to.

Who should play it

1.g3 suits positional players who like fianchetto set-ups such as the King's Indian Attack, the Catalan or the English, and want to reach them by a flexible move order.

The numbers

On Lichess the results are close to even below 2200: 48.7% for White against 46.8% under 1400, 48.5% against 47.1% at 1400–1799 and 48.5% against 46.4% at 1800–2199. From 2200 up White does better, 49.7% against 42.9%. In about 20,400 master games White won 35.5%, Black 25.2%, and 39.4% were drawn.