5 0 game on FICS, white to move. My idea here is Bxg5, with the idea of hxg5, Nxg5, black moves, Ne6. With this series, I sac a bishop for two pawns, a strongly outposted knight, and a super strong rook on the F file. Thoughts?


edit: screwed up the diagram, I dont have a c pawn if that is relevant

looks like 1.Bxg5 hxg5 2.Nxg5 Nxd5 is a problem

but if Nxd5 I can just play Nxd5, which still accomplishes the same idea amirite? also it forces black to trade off material, completely exposing his king, which should be fine as long as I have my rooks and queen

hoyas,

In smilingbill's line you're just completely lost. Black's king is nowhere near exposed enough to compensate for a piece. Most of the time, if you're going to be sacrificing that kind of material (a piece for a pawn), you need to have very strong, concrete compensation.

Here's the problem, let's imagine that Rxd5 didn't exist. This position is still very bad for white.



There are 3 minor, a rook and a queen defending vs 1 minor, a rook and a queen attacking. This is very bad for the attacker. There are no weak complexes or squares that cannot be defended (e6 can be defended by Bf7) You don't have pawns ready to roll and brush away defenders. You're screwed cause none of the conditions for an attack are there. Ideally you'd immediately start attacking the queenside in the original position with ideas like Na4-b6, doubling rooks on the c-file, etc. Unfortunately your e4 pawn needs 2 babysitters.

I think that the key point here is--as swingdoc explained--that all of Black's pieces except for his queen's rook are on the kingside, and can't be easily driven away. If you look at successful sacrificial attacks in GM games you'll notice that the attacker almost always has more pieces on the wing where he's attacking even if he's down a piece or two overall.

This is a super interesting position. Black has a huge thematic threat that white needs to respond very quickly to. Rc8/Rxc3 in particular is extremely dangerous. All your center pawns fall and it's game over real fast.

The interesting thing is that while your sacrifice obviously grabs the initiative, it somehow still doesn't respond to this threat. For example: 1. Bxg5 hxg5 2. Nxg5 Rac8 3. Ne6 Rxc3!? 4. bxc3 Bxe4+ 5. Kh2 Bxd5!? and suddenly black is the one sacrificing material, and I think black is just much better after 6. Nxf8 Bxf8.

My goal in this position would be to get rid of black's f6 knight asap. I see two ways to do that - the standard way and a sacrificial way.

Standard: Nh2 with Ng4. This just barely works thanks to the fact that 1. Nh2 Rc8 2. Ng4 Rxc3?? 3. Nxf6+ comes with check. But it does work. Black's best seems something like 1. Nh2 Qd7. After 2. Ng4 Nxg4 3. hxg4 the position seems kind of equalish. Black has the two bishops but they're not exactly inspiring fear, and his pawns have the potential to become weak very fast.

Sacrificial: 1. h4 g4 2. Nh2 h5 3. Bg5 Rc8 4. Nxg4 hxg4 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. Qxg4 Qg7 7. Qe6+ Kh8 8. Qxd6 This would probably be winning if somehow you were castled queenside, but the position if your king here is unfortunate. Either way you get 3 pawns for the piece including a protected passed pawn. I have no idea how to evaluate this position. It's very complex and either side can win. Black may also have a better defense, but I think it's a good example of maybe a slightly more sound sacrificial idea.

This position is so neat in that it seems somewhat innocuous at a glance but even something as little as black's king being on h8 instead of g8 would dramatically change the nature of the position.

this just goes to show that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I lost the game because eventually the e pawn fell, and after that it was basically all over.

I've been playing chess for about 9 months now, and I am still not nearly skilled enough to play a complicated position like this well. I don't even know where to start.

Dire, why is that knight the first thing you think of? Is that to relieve the pressure on the center?

Yip. First thing to do in any position is always consider what your opponent is threatening. In this position your opponent is threatening Rc8 and Rxc3. If you don't deal with that threat somehow then you will just lose. Getting rid of the f6 knight which is attacking e4 is a direct way of doing this.

The sac won't work philosophically, because your main positional compensation is an outpost on e6. Unless you can get his light squared bishop off, you will not be able to maintain that outpost as he'll simply play something (excluding the Nd5 more tactical refutation) as easy as 1.Bg5 hg5 2.Ng5 Bf7, and then where's your outpost?

In any event, I always look to the "pawn pointing rule" I read about many years ago. In positions with a locked central pawn chain, you should attack in the direction your pawns point. In this case, white's pawns are pointing to the queenside, not the kingside. In the specific position, I think you should be focusing on defense more than offense because your pieces are very poorly positioned to attack queenside, and it's much worse if you don't have a c-pawn as you indicate.

White is slightly worse in the starting position and after the sac he should be lost. It has been pointed out that Nxd5 is the direct refutation. The question is if white already needs to work with drastical solutions.

A knight on f5 would be nice, especially if black trades his bishop for it. How about starting with Nh2 and then Ng4? If black answers with Nd7 then Ne3-f5.

Not to mention that Black could also give back material by an exchange sacrifice on e6 eventually and still be much better.