Test yourself!

In the last two articles we analyzed brilliant attacking games of Rashid Nezhmetdinov. There the Great Master of Attack showed a number of useful attacking techniques that you can use in your own games. But one of the readers expressed the following opinion in the comment section:

"Entertaining, but it looks very much like a speculative sacrifice. I don't think White had enough attack. I doubt that Kasparov would have sacrificed the queen in that position against Karpov."

Well, it is difficult to say for sure what could have happened since Kasparov never had that exact position in his games against Karpov. But look at the next game from their last World Championship Match, in 1990. Kasparov did sacrifice his queen for much less obvious compensation compared to the Nezhmetdinov's game, and Karpov was really lucky to escape for a draw. Judge for yourself:

This is an amazing game! Looking at the position immediately after the queen sacrifice it is difficult to believe that Black has enough compensation, and yet Karpov was really happy to escape with a draw. Was this sacrifice speculative? You bet! But this is one of the ways to play chess: you create a lot of problems for your opponent and even if a chess engine proves after the game that the sacrifice wasn't sound, it is irrelevant in my opinion.

So, today you'll be offered a bunch of positions where the best move can be found if you have learned lessons from the Nezhmetdinov's games that we analyzed.

Here is the whole game:

How White should continue his attack in the following position?

Now try to solve 'the Petrosian's twins':

Here is one more typical combo:

Finally, I would like to offer you a position from one of my own game. This one was played in one of my most memorable tournaments where I became European Junior Champion:

I hope you enjoyed the puzzles!