How to play against the Milner-Barry Gambit in the French

So I've got my pairing for this week for the TeamLeague on FICS, and I looked up my opponent's recent games to see what openings he plays. He always plays 1. e4 as white, to which I normally respond with the French these days. Looking at one of his recent games, he played the Milner-Barry Gambit, which I don't know very well, and he seems to have played it very well.

 

I considered switching to something else instead of 1. ... e6 in my game against this guy, just to avoid playing him in a gambit that he knows much better than I do, but I realized I wouldn't learn anything that way. I want to study this gambit some for the next couple of days until my game so that I'm really prepared to take this guy on at his own game. I may lose, but I'll learn a lot about a dangerous line that I could face again in the future, as long as I continue playing the French. 

 

I know there's a lecture on FICS that has a supposed refutation to it, so I need to go figure out how to request specific lectures from the lecture bot there. Other than that, does anyone have any advice on how to play against this gambit? Any good web sites on it?

 

--Fromper 

I don't know how much this helps you. I think this is the "refutation" that you will see in the lecture on FICS. There are places for white to vary. If you could post a few Milner-Barry games your upcoming opponent has played it might be easier to make suggestions.

I think 10. ... Qb6 is better than 10. ... Qxe5 . 

I think 1. ... c5 is better than 1. ... e6 but without any commentary it doestn't much matter or help anyone that I have that opinion. I'm not partial to the line I gave above, it just happens to be what I remember of the Milner-Barry. I'm all for a discussion of alternatives, but I don't see the point of making non-persuasive claims.

I won, and I definitely feel comfortable playing this opening if it comes up in the future now that I studied for it this way. Definitely a good learning game for me. Thanks for the responses. :)

My opponent messed up early. I transposed by playing Bd7 before trading the c pawns, and it threw him off so he wasted a move playing h3 instead of just castling immediately, so he ended up a tempo down from the normal gambit line. This allowed me to play Bb4, preventing his rook from going to e1, and pretty much killing the gambit's effectiveness. Then later in the game, he made the mistake of letting me open up the f file for an attack on his f2 pawn, and it was all over.

Here's the whole game if anyone's interested:




--Fromper

 This is a badly played MilnerBarry- Attack. I don't think Mr. Milner Barry would be very pleased to see the way White conducted his Line of attack!

Singa wrote:

 This is a badly played MilnerBarry- Attack. I don't think Mr. Milner Barry would be very pleased to see the way White conducted his Line of attack!

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True. As I said, my transposition (playing Bd7 before trading c pawns) messed up my opponent. He should have castled at that point instead of playing h3, so he could have transposed back to the main line of the gambit. This guy definitely played this gambit much better in the game I had seen in his history, which is what prompted me to study the gambit before playing against him.

 

--Fromper 

I agree with fleiman that Black should not play 10)Qxe5?  After all Black has an extra pawn now, and with careful play, should win the Endgame! Being greedy by taking the 2nd pawn opens himself to an irresistible attack!  Either 10)Q-b6 or 10)a6   will do.

The attack after black plays 10. ... Qxe5 isn't unstoppable, but white does get the second pawn back with an attack that requires very careful defense, so that doesn't seem to be black's best move. Going into this game, I was intending 10. ... a6, but my opponent messed up before that, so I didn't need to play that. I still play the French a lot though, so if it comes up again, I know that I'll play it that way in the future.

 

--Fromper