From my experience, it is typically not worth a minor piece sacrifice to prevent the enemy king from castling... UNLESS you have a follow-up mating combination ready.
Knight fork to remove castling option?
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Sep 17, 2016
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#3
I'm certainly no expert... but I believe when sacrificing a piece, you must be able to see an advantage to doing so, that you can ACTUALLY USE. If you find yourself saying "Sacing here would mess up their pieces, but I see no way of using this advantage", then it's likely not worth the piece!
Sep 17, 2016
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#4
jay_194 wrote:
I'm certainly no expert... but I believe when sacrificing a piece, you must be able to see an advantage to doing so, that you can ACTUALLY USE. If you find yourself saying "Sacing here would mess up their pieces, but I see no way of using this advantage", then it's likely not worth the piece!
Agreed... but there are exceptions. If your intuition is SCREAMING at you that the sacrifice is sound, even though you can't see the proper follow-up ahead of time, I would still do it. Better to lose a game by an unsound sac (and thereby fine-tune your intuition for the next game) than to lose a game that you could have won brilliantly, because you lacked the daring to make a speculative sacrifice.
Sep 17, 2016
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#5
Some openings are based upon a piece sacrifice; some openings are based upon moving the King without castling. Neither of these things are absolutely wrong. However, speculative sacrifices in the opening generally end up bad for the one with the material deficit.
It's not necessarily bad, but generally it is. With any move--sacrifice or not--it's all about getting the most bang for your buck. In sacrificing a major piece for their castling ability, you mess up your opponent's position, but without a plan, you also reduce your own ability to capitalize on your opponent's weaker position.
I agree with blueemu: the best way to understand this is to see it in action. Try it a few times, see what you can do, and study those games to figure out what was gained and lost.
Sep 17, 2016
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#7
Here is a nice example of an unclear sacrifice on f7 that worked out for me (of a bishop in this case). This was against a FM who admittedly did not play to his strength but it shows that being forced to deal with an awkward position for many moves can lead to mistakes even by strong players. I say don't die wondering but of course I have lost various games where my attack led to nothing. The satisfaction of winning such a game outweighs the disappointments of losing in my opinion.
Sep 17, 2016
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#8
Apart from the fact that removing the light squared bishop by either side makes sense, earlier.
Thank you all for your replies!
Yes it is foolish.
The time to sacrifice material is when you can see a clear forcing line which recovers your material with advantage or mates.
Otherwise don't sacrifice.
No charge.
You can also sacrifice material for positional and defensive reasons.
Sep 17, 2016
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#12
johnyoudell wrote:
Yes it is foolish.
The time to sacrifice material is when you can see a clear forcing line which recovers your material with advantage or mates.
Otherwise don't sacrifice.
No charge.
Too bad you weren't around to offer your advice to Mikhail Tal... he might have become World Champion!
... oh, wait...
Sep 17, 2016
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#13
Tigran as far as I recall was champion twice, beating both Spassky and Botvinnik, not bad for a 'patzer'. As for Tal one might come to the conclusion that he lost to Botvinnik because his reckless style became too predictive.
Sep 17, 2016
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#14
leklerk1 wrote:
Tigran as far as I recall was champion twice, beating both Spassky and Botvinnik, not bad for a 'patzer'. As for Tal one might come to the conclusion that he lost to Botvinnik because his reckless style became too predictive.
Petrosian was a brilliant tactician, and one of the strongest blitz players in the world. People think of him as a python-like strategic player, but far under-rate his tactical alertness.
Tal faded from the top of the chess world after he started encountering health problems. He did somewhat better after having a kidney removed, but never really recovered his stamina.
I played him in a simul in '88, by the way. Draw.
Sep 17, 2016
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#15
blueemu wrote:
leklerk1 wrote:
Tigran as far as I recall was champion twice, beating both Spassky and Botvinnik, not bad for a 'patzer'. As for Tal one might come to the conclusion that he lost to Botvinnik because his reckless style became too predictive.
Petrosian was a brilliant tactician, and one of the strongest blitz players in the world. People think of him as a python-like strategic player, but far under-rate his tactical alertness.
Tal faded from the top of the chess world after he started encountering health problems. He did somewhat better after having a kidney removed, but never really recovered his stamina.
I played him in a simul in '88, by the way. Draw.
Postponing the match was an option I guess. Yes he was ill but he wasn't prepared for the rematch.
Sep 17, 2016
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#17
Not playing e4 but it's not a problem really, for me to play it from time time. :) It doesn't have to be Cohrane either. Will see. I won't be playing chess anytime soon.
Ok, but the Cochrane is actually playable, as White has two pawns for the piece and the classical pawn center with easy development.
Is it foolish to use a knight to fork the opponent's queen and rook from f2 or f7 just to disrupt the other player's castling options (assuming the opponent's king would capture the knight to prevent loss of the queen or rook)?
Or is it worth the loss of the knight to prevent the other player from ever castling?