Dutch Defence

The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:

1. d4 f5

Black's 1...f5 stakes a claim to the e4-square and envisions an attack in the middlegame on White's kingside; however, it also weakens Black's kingside to some extent, especially on the e8–h5 diagonal. Like its 1.e4 counterpart, the Sicilian Defence, the Dutch is an aggressive and unbalancing opening, resulting in the lowest percentage of draws among the most common replies to 1.d4. Historically, White has tried many methods to exploit the kingside weaknesses, such as the Staunton Gambit (2.e4) and Korchnoi Attack (2.h3 and 3.g4).

The Dutch has never been a main line against 1.d4 and is rarely seen today in high-level competition, although a number of top players, including Alexander Alekhine, Bent Larsen, Paul Morphy, Miguel Najdorf, Simon Williams, and Hikaru Nakamura have used it with success. Its most notable use may have been in 1951, when both World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik and his challenger, David Bronstein, played it in their 1951 World Championship match.

History

Elias Stein (1748–1812), an Alsatian who settled in The Hague, recommended the defence as the best reply to 1.d4 in his 1789 book Nouvel essai sur le Jeu des échecs, avec des réflexions militaires relatives à ce jeu.

Siegbert Tarrasch rejected the opening as unsound in his 1931 work The Game of Chess, arguing that White should reply with the Staunton Gambit, with White being better after 2.e4 fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 c6 5.f3! exf3.

Practitioners

The Stonewall Dutch enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the 1980s and 1990s, when leading grandmasters (GMs) Artur Yusupov, Sergey Dolmatov, Nigel Short, and Simen Agdestein helped develop the system where Black plays an earlier ...d5 and places his dark-squared bishop on d6.