In the most recent round of games, round 2, at Wijk aan Zee, Mamedyarov played a move against Esipenko that shocked everyone (who paid attention). After a very standard Indian game (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6) he played 3. g4, which online would appear to be a Catalan ruined by a mouseslip.
<iframe width=600 height=371 src="lichess.org/study/embed/nVHXUIAM/imLR8NzN#5" frameborder=0></iframe>
But apparently this is known as "Devin's Gambit." It's history and study is next to nonexistent from what I can find, and it only appeared twice in the masters database (less than a thousand games sitewide). The idea, it would seem, is to lure black's knight to capture on g4, which is followed up by 4. e4 (a discovered attack on the knight + putting a third pawn on the center, which sounds like good compensation although I would still get destroyed by Esipenko drunk, blindfolded, and babysitting his hyper nephew).
The main declined variation is pushing the pawn on d5--attempting to play it like, y'know, a normal d4 opening. This is what Esipenko did, as well as both the previous masters in the database, and while those games saw other moves against g4 Mamedyarov went with the most common reply in the Lichess game database (277/350), 4. g5, chasing away the knight. Following this with ...Ne4 is also the Lichess user favorite, but with 5. Bg2 they reached a position seen only 54 times in the database.
Thoughts on this weird opening?
<iframe width=600 height=371 src="lichess.org/study/embed/nVHXUIAM/imLR8NzN#5" frameborder=0></iframe>
But apparently this is known as "Devin's Gambit." It's history and study is next to nonexistent from what I can find, and it only appeared twice in the masters database (less than a thousand games sitewide). The idea, it would seem, is to lure black's knight to capture on g4, which is followed up by 4. e4 (a discovered attack on the knight + putting a third pawn on the center, which sounds like good compensation although I would still get destroyed by Esipenko drunk, blindfolded, and babysitting his hyper nephew).
The main declined variation is pushing the pawn on d5--attempting to play it like, y'know, a normal d4 opening. This is what Esipenko did, as well as both the previous masters in the database, and while those games saw other moves against g4 Mamedyarov went with the most common reply in the Lichess game database (277/350), 4. g5, chasing away the knight. Following this with ...Ne4 is also the Lichess user favorite, but with 5. Bg2 they reached a position seen only 54 times in the database.
Thoughts on this weird opening?