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A brave and daring chess sacrifice ...
Karjakin & Caruana face off in Berlin, 2018.

A brave and daring chess sacrifice ...

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OK, this blog is not meant to be taken literally, at least not in all of its aspects and statements. Click here to see what I mean. 

I have always loved a game of chess that involved the sacrifice of at least one exchange. 

I made the following post {originally} in the "Cheating Forum" of this website:  
"I played a similar game vs. a Senior Master some 40+ years ago. I had castled Q-side, he on the K-side. He had a fianchetto'd Bishop, pointing at my King. I played Re5!? and he took it after less than a minute. Eventually I got my DSB to e5, played d4 to anchor my piece, and g4-g5. (To prevent f7-f6 at any point.) I eventually won the game. AFTER the game, ALL the masters agreed that Re5 was an inferior move, but I would do it again, if I had the chance." (I should add that - at a later tournament - another master showed me a line, discovered by a GM, that would have busted me completely.) 

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I have long been known for sacking the exchange, I have no idea where or when this started. 

Of course, I play many opening systems ... like the Grunfeld and the Sicilian Defense where exchange sacrifices are quite common ... for more, see the excellent book: "Sacrifices in The Sicilian," by GM Leonid Shamkovich. 

Long ago, in local (Mobile, AL) tournaments, Mr. Tom Denton hung the moniker on me: 
"Mr. Exchange Sacrifice." (I seemed to sack 'the ox' in almost every game we played.) 

So ... apparently ... Karjakin has secretly been studying my games and stolen a page out of my own playbook! 

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In our game that we are discussing, GM Karjakin plays the most interesting exchange sacrifice.  

 To be sure, a wonderful game. I also want to point out - for THREE Candidates Cycles in a row!!!!! - that Karjakin has started somewhat slowly ... but finished strong in each of these events. 

- LM A.J. Goldsby I  (Click HERE to go to a website to replay a few of my tournament chess games.) 

  Links and Resources ... for further study.   

  • Click here to see the story of round 12 on this website. 
  • Click here to see the coverage of round 12 on the Chessbase website. 
  • Click here to go to the "Chessgames" web-page for this clash. 
  • Click here to watch GM Peter Svidler's video on this game. 
  • Click here to watch GM Danny King's video on this game. 
  • Click here to go to my main domain on chess. 
  • Click here to see a web page that I did on a key game in the Petrov Defense. 
    (Here is another good page on the Petrov/Petroff Defense.) 
If you would like to see "the proof of the win," then this is a line that I composed, but also checked it against Fritz 15. 
 

 

Have a nice day! I hope you enjoyed my little article!  grin.png