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Greek Gift Sacrifice

Greek Gift Sacrifice

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Hypnoticdemon
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The Greek Gift sacrifice is a risky sacrifice, but when executed correctly, it can win material or even force a checkmate. The Greek Gift sacrifice is a bishop sacrifice used to expose your opponent's king.

This sacrifice is rather easy to learn, and really fun to use. It's best used against lower rated opponents or when someone is really low on time. The reason it's not too common at the top level is because grand masters have good defense and use certain methods to block the sacrifice(which will be covered in this article).

The Greek Gift sacrifice has a few requirements for it to work:

  1. Your opponent must be castled on the king-side and not have moved the rook
  2. Their h pawn needs to be on its original square-h7 or h2
  3. The h pawn can only be defended by their king
  4. Your pieces must be in proper position and have access to the squares they want to maneuver to

There are two options for the positions of your pieces in the sacrifice...

The second option is to forget about the dark squared bishop. However, if you do this you take the risk of having one less offensive option, which can even win you the queen.

After your opponent accepts the sacrifice you will always play Ng5+. From there your opponent has 4 options on where to move. This article will show what to do for all 4 scenarios. 

The first, and easiest, is if they play Kh8??. This move should almost always lead to a forced mate in 2. Solve the following tactic to find the correct moves. Once you're ready for the answer, scroll down to the second diagram.

Here's the answer:

The second case is when they play Kg8. This also leads to mate in 2, unless they can defend h7 in one move(more than not with a knight). The mate is the same as before, just without a check with the queen move. A common "escape" I've seen is f6, seemingly making and escape square for the king. Just play Qh7#, because the knight controls f6. It is possible that your opponent won't get mated but, you can draw by repetition or try to further the attack with other pieces, like rooks.
The third line is super simple, if you have the dark-squared bishop. When your opponent plays Kh6, you can move the knight a pick any discovery you want. If the queen is on d1, you can win it. But you will always be able to at least grab the rook.
The forth line is the most complicated. Your opponent normally has good chances of surviving if they play this line. The move is Kg6. After, you want to put your queen on the g file and try to keep it their to do a discovery. Just a heads up, it may be hard. They might play f5 attacking your queen or just move their king off the g file. Make sure to keep an eye out for checkmates or ways to win material.
How to Defend:
  1. If your opponent has set-up for the sacrifice, you can move your h pawn-h6* is normally best.
  2. Protect h7 with more than the king-a knight on f6 perhaps.
  3. Control the maneuvering squares.*
  4. Capture the required pieces or trade the light-squared bishops.

I hope you have great success with this sacrifice and that this article was helpful.

Thanks for reading, have an excellent rest of your day!happy.png