The opening is named after British IM Bob Wade[1] (1921–2008), originally from New Zealand, who played it for over 30 years.

A number of grandmasters have often played the opening, including Julian Hodgson, Michael Adams, Vlastimil Jansa, and Tony Miles.

Jouni Yrjölä and Jussi Tella, in their book An Explosive Chess Opening Repertoire for Black, state that the opening: [...] was played in 1938 by Rudolf Spielmann and used in the 1960s by Stein and Kavalek among others ...

But the towering figure of the line is Julian Hodgson, who popularized it with many dynamic performances.

Among the other practitioners, the contributions of Miles, Adams, Hickl and Jansa to the theoretical development of the line are worth mentioning.