Trying speculative sacrificing
In an early round of a Nevada State Championship some years ago, I was pleased to find myself sitting across from a familiar face. My foe was someone I regularly defeated in local club play. Even so, our game moved along for some while without his having provided me any weaknesses, let alone blunders, to exploit. Perhaps succumbing to a combination of impatience and overconfidence, I intentionally leaped one of my knights into his king’s pawn shield, giving up that piece for two pawns and a potential attack against his somewhat insecure monarch.
There were far too many possible attacking and defending maneuvers to examine completely. I had made a speculative sacrifice, gambling that my assault would somehow succeed. To my dismay, my foe played the game of his life, by his own admission, defended extremely well and scored the full point.
By its nature, chess is a complicated game, and we are not supercomputers capable of near-perfect calculation. Some masters are famous for making objectively unsound sacrifices, counting on their foes losing their way in the complexity.
One of the most famous was World Champion No. 8, Mikhail Tal of Latvia. Considered to be one of the greatest attacking and tactical players of all time, the “Magician from Riga’s” career was filled with brilliant memorable games. It was also filled with suspicions that many of his sacrifices were theoretically wrong. He would win because his foes could not find the refutations over the board under the pressure of their ticking clocks. Afterward, though, they could make claims that Tal made mistakes and that they should have won. ExWorld Champion Vasily Smyslov even labeled Tal as just a trickster.
See how he quickly overwhelmed former World Champion Boris Spassky in the following game: SpasskyTal, Montreal, 1979. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.e3 Bb7 5.Bd3 d5 6.b3 Bd6 7.0–0 0–0 8.Bb2 Nbd7 9.Nbd2 Qe7 10.Rc1 Rad8 11.Qc2 c5 12.cxd5 exd5 13.dxc5 bxc5 14.Qc3 Rfe8 15.Rfd1 d4 16.exd4 cxd4 17.Qa5 Ne5 18.Nxe5 Bxe5 19.Nc4 Rd5 20.Qd2 Bxh2+ 21.Kxh2 Rh5+ 22.Kg1 Ng4 0–1. Mate was incoming. Note: My computer assures me that Tal’s 15...d4 is an unsound pawn giveaway. That move, however, does activate Black’s men whether Spassky takes the gift or not.
Our featured game this week was played in the recent Women’s World Championship. White’s early suspect attack was starting to falter, so she speculatively sacrificed her knight (28.Nxg6) for a king attack. Her foe failed to find the best answer, 29...Qc7, which would have left her the piece ahead for some pawns. A few moves later, Black was resigning. The speculation had paid off.
Upcoming L.A. event
This month, one of Southern California’s major yearly tournaments will take place in Los Angeles. On April 25-27, the Western Pacific Open will entice players from amateurs to masters with a prize fund up to $10,000, depending upon number of entrants. metrochessla.com/tournament_ swiss_2/ .