Some of these opening proposals are solid and safe, but you also find interesting, double-edged gambits.
Robert Ris recently presented such a gambit:
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Nd5!?.
But can White really play this way – moving the knight twice before completing his development and neglecting to defend e4?
At any rate, some strong players, including Jorden van Foreest and Alexey Shirov, have recently made use of this idea in various online tournaments and achieved some success with it.
The ChessBase Magazine editorial team now had the idea that the authors of opening contributions should put their proposals to the test by taking part in a thematic tournament against ChessBase Magazine subscribers. "Play the Author" is the motto.