Learn From The Masters: Sacrifice Everything!

Greetings, fellow Chess.com readers!

We will (kind of) begin a new series here. The objective will be to go through Chess.com's perspective on the greatest games of all time. My goal is to have each of those games analyzed in detail by yours truly. I am also more than open to adding games that might not be on the list, and maybe recent games that couldn't make the list. It will take a while to go through the list, and the series may be neverending, but I do thank Chess.com for generating this list for us to fall back on and study.

With that said, I made the decision to start at the bottom of the list and progress up.

We will begin with this spectacular affair between proficient Chess.com writer GM Gregory Serper, and Greek GM Ioannis Nikolaidis. It shocks me to see that game on the bottom of Chess.com's list because Gregory Serper DID Sacrifice ALL of his pieces! And he won by the way.  

Before we begin, feel free to send me your favorite games that were not on the list mentioned above. I plan to keep a database of the games Chess.com listed, and I'm more than open to adding to my personal list.  With that said, I hope you enjoy the fireworks of this game!

White to play. What is the best move?

And you know that it gets even prettier? After 17. Nd5(!), cxd5 18. exd5, f5 19. d6, Qc6, White has a beautiful move here. Too aesthetic for me to present as a puzzle... you JUST HAVE to see it!

And the fireworks crackle even more...

What more can I say? White's 25. Rxc8(!) is a deflection of sorts. After Black played 25... Qxc8, 26. Qd5 and the Queen is coming to e6, like a hot knife through butter.

I hope you enjoyed the game... who wouldn't?

Here is a recommended video on this game by the St. Louis Chess Club. The STLCC is likely the leading chess club in the world and produces instructive and entertaining content. GM Josh Friedel is fun to watch. The video covers the game just as well as I do (probably better. ). Josh goes deep into variations that we never touched upon, so I would really encourage the reader to take a look.

Want more of GM Josh Friedel? Perpetual Chess Podcast has an awesome interview with Friedel. He shares his chess wisdom, some of his personal stories, and much more! I would highly encourage the reader to listen to this interview, as well as subscribe for the Perpetual Chess Podcast. Lots of amazing stuff.

I hope you have a good day. Please leave comments... whether it be about the game, possible games to analyze that are not on the list, or just about anything. 

Until then, this is Daniel Guel signing off.