In your game the sacrifice was sound, but only because of your opponent's bad defensive moves. Usually it isn't so clear what will happen. Nice game anyway.
The attack on h7.
Sort:
Forgot that bit.
And yes, I agree that Black made a hash out of the opening, but the primary pieces are there. White has the optimal setup for the attack; Black's dark squared Bishop is on b4 and not on e7, Black's knight is not on f6, and his white squared bishop and queenside knight usually have no direct access to the kingside by the time White begins the attack.
Great attack. Why is the greek gift the only attack mentioned from the book The Art of Attack? Are there several others?
This is the most common attack, and probably the easiest one to setup. I'm sure there's a similar setup for people that castle queenside, but I rarely see anyone that does it, myself included.
I never actually read a book to learn this attack, that's how common it is.
I'd read a thread recently about a sacrifice on h7 that wasn't sound, and eventually led to a loss for White. Now, I do premature sacrifices on h7 all the time, provided that several conditions are met. In the above game, Black could have coordinated his opening at least a little better than he could have (especially with the first 4 moves), but this is just a general idea of what to look out for with the h7 attack.
I'd also like a little analysis for if Black does not take the bishop. I'd like to think there are more chances for Black than what I had seen, and would like to see how much of a defense Black can put up.
I also talked about playing e5 with a buddy of mine, and he says that d5 is played much more often, to open up the position and eventually go into an endgame. For the h7 attack, I view e5 as intergral to the attack, and must be played in order for the attack to have a sure chance of success. Against average players, I suspect this works quite well. But what about the experts?
Edit: Added a line I overlooked involving f6.