The Hobbs and Dorsch Gambits

Making a lasting mark at chess is a tough thing to do. Maybe you play as well as Kasparov, or compose as splendidly as Grigoriev, or teach as memorably as Purdy, but not many of us attain the levels of skill required
to do those things.

Some players achieve some immortality by attaching their names to an opening. Sometimes the moves are not so good - Robert Durkin claimed 1. Na3 - and sometimes they are based in real positional grounds. Two different wing gambits, where one side aims for center control by deflecting an enemy bishop pawn, have been named for Bay Area players.


In one of his books on the French Defense, international master John Watson named 1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4!? the Dorsch Gambit for life master Tom Dorsch of Menlo Park after Dorsch enjoyed a burst of success with the idea in the early 90s, but Dorsch himself preferred the more descriptive name French
Wing Gambit.

Ten years earlier, Richard Parker Hobbs of the Berkeley, Oakland, and Monday Knights chess clubs, hit upon the weird idea 1. f4 g5?! to battle Bird's Opening. Grandmaster Benjamin and FIDE master Schiller give Hobbs equal billing with Steinlach in their Unorthodox Openings, and said that Black's life [in the Steinlach-Hobbs Gambit] is likely to be nasty, brutish, and short.

Category: Openings in Chess