Troon Gambit

[John Upham]

We are probably used to chess.com claiming names for openings that no-one has ever heard of.

Am playing in a county match for Berkshire and as White the game has started with a Borg Defence

1. d4 h6 2. e4 g5 3.h4 g4 4. Nc3 etc

Apparently 3...g4 is called the Troon Gambit.

Anyone know the background to this?

[Tim Spanton]

3...g4 is the main move in the position.

Oldest game in ChessBase's 2025 Mega database:

[Event "SCO-ch"]
[Site "Troon"]
[Date "1986.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Giulian, Philip Maurice"]
[Black "Basman, Michael J"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B00"]
[WhiteElo "2225"]
[BlackElo "2395"]
[PlyCount "42"]
[EventDate "1986.07.??"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "SCO"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2001.11.25"]

1. d4 h6 2. e4 g5 3. h4 g4 4. Qxg4 d5 5. Qe2 dxe4 6. Qxe4 Nf6 7. Qd3 Nc6 8. c3
Qd5 9. Nf3 Rg8 10. Nbd2 Bg4 11. Nc4 O-O-O 12. Ne3 Qd6 13. Nxg4 Nxg4 14. Qf5+
Kb8 15. Bf4 e5 16. Nxe5 Nxd4 17. Nxg4 Nc2+ 18. Qxc2 Qxf4 19. Ne3 Bc5 20. g3
Rxg3 21. fxg3 Qxe3+ 0-1

[Roger de Coverly]

3...g4 is the main move in the position.

Oldest game in ChessBase's 2025 Mega database:

[Event "SCO-ch"]
[Site "Troon"]
[Date "1986.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Giulian, Philip Maurice"]
[Black "Basman, Michael J"]
[Result "0-1"]

A Basman game. Who else?

[Kevin Thurlow]

And Mike was prone to inventing his own nomenclature for opening variations!

[Mark Taylor]

Yes, but chess.com renames existing lines that have been around for decades, and in at least one case over a century.

Basman at least assigned names to openings that didn't, as far as I know (although I'm waiting to be debunked!), already have them.