In chess, although it is generally best to have stronger pieces and more of them, occasionally tactical circumstances can occur in which such a material edge can be sacrificed to open up the opponent king and create a checkmating sequence. This concept is demonstrated in Figure 1 in which white is up a knight, bishop and two pawns but by sacrificing material to break apart the safety of the white king, black can force checkmate and win the game. The only winning move is the queen sacrifice, queen takes h2, forcing the king to take the queen and walk into the h file where it is x-rayed the h8 rook. This allows knight to g3 check, using a discovered attack on the white king to force it back to g1. Then, as the knight protects the h1 square, rook to h1 is simply checkmate.
Figure 2 is from a famous game between American chess legend Paul Morphy with white and Duke Karl/Count Isouard with black at the opera. Morphy continued to activate his pieces and apply pressure to the black position with 1. Bg5. His opponents responded with 1… b5, attacking the c4 bishop but the weakness of the black king allows for the knight sacrifice: 2. Nxb5. After 2… cxb5, 3. Bxb5 Nbd7, Morphy further increased pressure on the black position while also getting his king to safety by long castling, 4. 0-0-0, attacking the pinned knight on d7. Black defended with 4…Rd8, but this allows for Morphy’s second sacrifice, 5. Rxd7, giving up the rook for the knight but opening up the d1 square so that the h1 rook can participate in the game. 5… Rxd7 6. Rd1 and the black position is on the verge of collapsing due to the open king and all of black’s pieces being tied up in pins. Therefore, black played 6… Qe6, offering a queen trade to limit white’s attacking possibilities and unpinning the f6 knight so that it protects d7. However, after 7. Bxd7, 7… Nxd7 actually loses the game entirely, setting up a forced checkmate in 2 moves. The winning move is the incredible queen sacrifice, 8. Qb8+, giving up the queen completely so that after 8… Nxb8, despite being down 10 points of material, white has 9. Rd8 checkmate.
The position displayed in Figure 3 is from a game between Henrikas Asauskas and Vidmantas Malisauskas at the 2004 LTU-ch. Utilizing the weak dark squares around the black king and the activity of white’s rooks, the brilliant sequence begins with the queen sacrifice: Queen to f6 check. After the bishop captures on f6, white recaptures on f6 with the g pawn, forcing the black king to the backrank. Now white can continue sacrificing material to open up the black king with rook takes h7 so that after king takes h7, rook h3 check and king g8, white has the winning move bishop to h6. No matter what black does, white will plant the bishop on g7 and rook to h8 is an unstoppable checkmate.
Figure 4 is from a game at the 2012 Albena Open between Mitja Piskur with white and Boris Klein with black. The winning idea for white is to utilize the activity of his rook and knight to break apart the pawns protecting the black king, and then to use the queen to checkmate the now open black king. Therefore, white began with the sacrifice rook takes h7 and after the king recaptured, white continued to remove the pawns protecting the black monarch with knight to f6 check. Black is forced to recapture with the g7 pawn or else the queen is lost. However, now white can take advantage of the openness of the black king so that after queen to h5 check, king to g8 and the g takes f6, checkmate is unstoppable after either Queen to h6 or g5, depending on what black does.
Ethan Feder is a junior at Yeshivat Frisch, a chess enthusiast and player. The goal of his column is to teach and discuss chess concepts through example positions, high-level games and relevant puzzles, along with explanations. Feel free to contact him with any questions, suggestions or comments at [email protected].
