A Parallel Queen's Sacrifice in Two Different Openings

A few months ago, I purchased Yuri Razuvaev's "Key Concepts of Gambit Play", by Quality Chess.

In this book, Razuvaev explores gambit lines in different openings. Chapter 3 explores some lines in the Four Knights Game, and one of the sections features a game between Motylev and Shirov, from 1994.

But I remembered seeing this idea before! But where? Was it Lasker, or Zukertort, or Chigorin? Looking at the books about these players, I could not find the game in which a player broke a similar pin, sacrificing his Queen.

Finally, I remembered. It was one of the La Bourdonnais-MacDonnell games! The book covering all 85 games these two great players played in 1834 is a fantastic piece of chess literature. Published in 2005 by MacFarland & Company, it is the birth of positional chess as we know it today. Morphy studied these games, and even commented a few....

Let us take a look at the game in question: This is game 50 in the series of 85 games....They played six matches in six months. This is game four of the fourth match.

So, we have a similar idea 160 years appart! Ah, the value of the games of the old Masters is incalculable!

August 6, 2017- A friend just poiented out a nice Queen sacrifice by John Nunn, with a similar idea:

  John Nunn
  (1955-    )