Talk:Elephant Gambit

Name
Is it true, that `Elephant´ comes from Bd6 (Bishop was the arabic `Alfil´/Elephant in medieval chess)?--85.183.152.250 (talk) 13:26, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Philip Corbin
Is this name really worth mentioning in this context? He appears to be a decent, but hardly world class player. If he wasn't from Barbados basically nobody would know about him. bamse (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Popularisation by Jonathan Schrantz
Youtuber Jonathan Schrantz, posting as vampirechicken, wins a lot with the Elephant. He generally plays a sharp line overlooked by the many sources telling you the Elephant is a paper tiger. So people are generally unprepared for it. This is 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d5 3 exd5 Nf6. This seems to be no worse than the alternatives, and is very trappy, hence Schrantz's good results at short time controls. Usually this continues 4 Nxe5 (as good as anything) Qxd5.

If black gets to take white's g-pawn with his queen, black has usually already won. So white needs to make arrangements to block this threat, so as to release the light-squared bishop, which is otherwise tied down to protecting it. If white tries Qf3 at some point to defend against this, it is usually a terrible mistake.

Shrantz himself recommends 5 Qe2 as the best response for White, or at least the one he least wishes to face. Unless black gives up more material, it is no longer easy for black to get his pieces out quickly and build a big king-side attack. After, for example, 5 ...Be7 6 Nc3 it is white that is pushing black around. But Schrantz typically gives up the exchange with 5 ...Bc5 6 Ng6+ Be6 7 Nxh8 Nc6. This should lose if White defends carefully, which is relatively straightforward in these lines. For example, after 8 Nc3 Qf5 the threat of ...Nd4 is adequately handled with the obvious 9 d3 Nd4 10 Qd2.

The most common approach to protect the g-pawn is to retreat the knight quickly with Nf3, either immediately 5 Nf3 or (more common from better players) 5 d4 Nc6 6 Nf3. These are similar and playable, and black should fail to get adequate compensation for the pawn if white plays carefully. But white will have to put up with a lot of K-side pressure on the way, and more traps arise. Black often lines up bishop on g4 and Q on h5 against the f3 knight. So it doesn't help white to play an early Nc3 in these lines, which just encourages black to put the Q where black wanted to put it anyway. Black will probably also increase K-side pressure with a B on d6, and soon has all his pieces out and castled, while White is cramped and has difficulty putting his pieces in useful places.

There are two other playable lines after 5 d4 Nc6 for white to maintain a worthwhile advantage. After 6 Nxc6 Qxc6 white still has to play accurately. A practical way to simplify while maintaining an advantage is now 7 Qe2+ Be7 8 Qb5 to get the queens off and relieve the pressure. But 7 Nc3 Bb4 is common and playable. White now does best to find 8 Qe2+ Ne4 9 Qc4  to get the queens off. There are other playable lines, but white will have to play accurately and put up with a lot of pressure. The other is 6 Nc3, offering to return the pawn. After 6 ...Bb4 7 Nxc6 (necessary) it transposes to the above line. If black does take the pawn back, 6 ...Qxd4 7 Nxc6 Qxd1+ 8 Nxd1 bxc6 is fine for white.

See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTNW-Y88wz4 and many other videos on that channel, which set out this analysis.

As Schrantz says in that video, Georgian Grandmaster Baadur Jobava also plays it occasionally. Ivan Viehoff (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing this information. I picked up a chapbook on the Elephant Gambit by Jonathan Rogers maybe 25 years ago because it looked like a fun experiment. Didn't take me very far, and I don't think I ever played it in a tournament, but in the pre-computer era I did like a fun-if-unsound opening. As for this article, Wikipedia typically just wants to include lines/analysis if they've been published in a reliable source. That typically means chess books, magazines, etc. A self-published YouTube video typically isn't going to count. There might be an exception for someone whose expertise on the subject has been documented independently elsewhere, but I don't think there will be consensus to include someone rated 19xx in that category. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 13:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)