The Monkey's Bum is a variation of the Modern Defense

Modern Defense

The Modern Defense is a hypermodern chess opening in which Black allows White to occupy the center with pawns on d4 and e4, then proceeds to attack and undermine this "ideal" center without attempting to occupy it himself...

, a chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 opening

Chess opening

A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...

. Although it may also be loosely defined as any approach against the Modern Defense involving an early Bc4 and Qf3, threatening "scholar's mate

Scholar's mate

In chess, Scholar's Mate is the checkmate achieved by the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6? 4. Qxf7#. The moves might be played in a different order or in slight variation, but the basic idea is the same—the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7 .Sometimes Scholar's Mate is...

", it is strictly defined by the sequence of moves:

1.e4 g6 2.Bc4 Bg7 3.Qf3 e6 4.d4 Bxd4 5.Ne2 Bg7 6.Nbc3,

The Monkey's Bum Deferred is a more respected variation in which White develops his queen's knight before playing Bc4 and Qf3.

Origin

The Monkey's Bum was discovered and championed by IM Nigel Povah in the 1970s during a wave of popularity for the Modern Defence. In 1972, after Keene

Raymond Keene

Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...

 and Botterill

George Botterill

George Steven Botterill is a British chess player, writer and philosopher.Botterill was born in Bradford and learned chess at the age of seven....

 published their book The Modern Defence, Povah began looking for a response to the opening. He happened across the game Ljubojevic

Ljubomir Ljubojevic

Ljubomir Ljubojević is a Grandmaster of chess. He was born on November 2, 1950, in Titovo Užice, Yugoslavia . Ljubojević was awarded the International Master title in 1970 and the GM title in 1971. He was Yugoslav champion in 1977 and 1982. He won the 1974 Canadian Open Chess Championship...

–Keene

Raymond Keene

Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...

, Palma de Mallorca

Palma de Mallorca

Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...

 1971, which started

1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6 3.Bc4 Bg7 4.f4 Nf6

and eventually ended in a draw

Draw (chess)

In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...

. Intrigued by Ljubojevic's early Bc4, Povah began investigating a rapid assault on f7 with 3.Qf3. When he showed the first few moves to Ken Coates, a friend at Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

, Coates declared,

"If that works then I'm a monkey's bum!"

The name stuck. The Monkey's Bum first appeared in print five years later in the British Chess Magazine

British Chess Magazine

British Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM....

. Povah wrote an article on the theory of the Monkey's Bum, in which he stated that although he had never yet lost with the variation, it was still "in its infancy".

Analysis

In playing the Monkey's Bum, White's idea is to gain active piece play by a sacrifice of the d4 pawn, much like the Smith-Morra Gambit

Smith-Morra Gambit

In chess, the Smith–Morra Gambit is an opening gambit against the Sicilian Defence distinguished by the moves:The Smith–Morra is not common in grandmaster games, but at club level chess it can be an excellent weapon.-History:...

. In practice however, such compensation proves tenuous in the Monkey's Bum proper, as evidenced by the following game.

1.e4 g6 2.Bc4 Bg7 3.Qf3 e6 4.d4 Bxd4 5.Ne2 Bg7 6.Nbc3 Nc6 7.Bf4 Ne5 8.Bxe5 Bxe5 9.Qe3 d6 10.O–O–O Bd7 11.f4 Bg7 12.g4 a6 13.h4 b5 14.Bb3 a5 15.a4 bxa4 16.Nxa4 h5 17.e5 Nh6 18.exd6 Nxg4 19.Qc5 c6 20.Nd4 Bxd4 21.Rxd4 O–O 22.Nb6 Rb8 23.Nxd7 Qxd7 24.Ba4 Qb7 25.b3 Qb6 26.Qxb6 Rxb6 27.Rc4 Rd8 28.Bxc6 Rxd6 29.Bf3 Ne3 30.Ra4 Rb4 31.Rxa5 Rxf4 32.Bb7 Rb6 33.Ba8 Nf5 34.Kb2 Nxh4 35.Ka3 Nf5 36.c4 Nd4 37.Rb1 Nc2+ 38.Ka2 Nb4+ 39.Kb2 Rb8 40.c5 Nd3+ 0–1 Povah,N-Kagan,S/Birmingham 1977/EXT 99

Monkey's Bum Deferred

A much more popular and respected approach against the Modern Defense is the Monkey's Bum Deferred. It has been employed by such notable grandmasters as John Nunn

John Nunn

John Denis Martin Nunn is one of England's strongest chess players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician....

, Sergei Rublevsky

Sergei Rublevsky

Sergei Rublevsky is a Russian chess grandmaster . He won the prestigious Aeroflot Open in 2004, and became the 58th Russian chess champion after winning the Russian Superfinal in Moscow , one point clear from Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Morozevich.He finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE...

 and Judit Polgár

Judit Polgár

Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster. She is by far the strongest female chess player in history. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, the youngest person ever to do so at that time.Polgár was ranked No...

. It is distinct from the Monkey's Bum proper in that the attempt to create the "scholar's mate" threat with Bc4 and Qf3 only occurs after White has developed his queen's knight. A typical sequence of the Monkey's Bum Deferred is

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Bc4 d6 5.Qf3.

Usually White will castle kingside and undertake an attack by means of the pawn thrust f4. The following spectacular game is probably the most famous success of the Monkey's Bum Deferred and forced it to be considered with respect by the chess world:

Polgar-Shirov, Donner Memorial, Amsterdam, 1995

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Bc4 d6 5.Qf3 e6 6.Nge2 b5 7.Bb3 a5 8.a3 Ba6 9.d5 cxd5 10.exd5 e5 11.Ne4 Qc7 12.c4 bxc4 13.Ba4+ Nd7 14.N2c3 Ke7 15.Nxd6 Qxd6 16.Ne4 Qxd5 17.Bg5+ Ndf6 18.Rd1 Qb7 19.Rd7+ Qxd7 20.Bxd7 h6 21.Qd1 1-0