Meanings
- not comparableAll or nothing, all in, for broke; riskily putting everything on the line to either win it all or lose it all.
Now he went va banque, risking the failure of the negotiations. Eden proposed to sign only a mutual military assistance agreement for twenty years and not to mention political questions or questions connected to borders at all.
2020 December 15, Eero Medijainen, Weaving the Iron Curtain, the Allies, and the Baltic States, 1939–1944: Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Caricatures, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 1091 more example
Sämisch was critical of this move, saying Black was now playing va banque. However, as was often the case in games between these players, Richter looks for ways to complicate things for Sämisch by adding to his clock problems.
2018 October 5, Alan McGowan, Kurt Richter: A Chess Biography with 499 Games, McFarland, →ISBN, page 88
Origin
- French(je) va
- Englishva banque
From French (je) va (la) banque, a call used in the 18th century in games like Rouge et Noir and Faro to announce that one was betting as much money as the bank had, to either win or lose that amount.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
va banque. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/va%20banque
“va banque.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/va%20banque. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “va banque,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/va%20banque.
Source: va banque on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.