BtM 40A: To sac or not to sac (Beat the Amateurs II)
November 1988, Position B
White to play
Christiansen - Andonov, St John’s 1988
Contributions to the comments box are welcome. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.
Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ and Amateurs’ feedback.
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or maybe not
In the game Christiansen won after 1 Bxf7+ Kxf7, 2 Ng5+ and then Kg6, 3 Rd3
"Obviously I glanced at the f7 sacrifice" said JUSTIN. As did all the panel. I doubt there’s many folks who wouldn’t think "Is Bxf7+ on here?" when shown this position for the first time. It’s just a question of whether you can make it work or not.
ANGUS: "1. Bxf7+. Black must recapture: 1 ... Kxf7. 2. Ng5+. Black now has a choice of three king moves: (a) 2... Kg8; (b) 2... Ke8; and (c) 2... Kg6. I’m discounting 2 ... Kf8 for an obvious reason."
If Black would just do a favour and play 2 … Kf8 it would save a lot of trouble.
LEON saw that after 2 … Kg8 3. Qc4+ d5 4. exd5 [threatening to push on with check, winning the queen] Black can’t recapture because after … Nxd5 White has 5. Nxd5 winning a piece because of the pin on the c-pawn. LEON wasn’t sure that his calculations were accurate but felt 1 Bxf7+ was the way to go "and see what happens." Good judgement.
MATT mentions 2 … Ke8 and again 3 Qc4 … d5 is not possible. "I don’t see what Black can do practically here."
PHIL looked at a couple of lines 2 … Ke8, 3 Ne6 Qb8, 4 Nxg7+ Kf7, 5 Nf5 (much better than my 5. Bh6 which leaves White worse). "Looks like a very good baseline from where we've made a lot of progress, albeit for the investment of a bishop" was Phil’s conclusion.
HIARCS seems to think this position is += which is obviously pretty meaningless when it comes to a game between humans.
Hoping for something better, PHIL looked at 1. Bxf7+ Kxf7 2. Qc4+ Ke8 3. Ng5 Rf8 4. Ne6 Qb7 5. Nxg7+ Kd8 6. Ne6+ Ke8 "and I can't see anything better than a perpetual".
As ANGUS pointed out, though, at the end of that line White has 7 Nxf8 finishing with Rook and two pawns against a bishop and a knight, not to mention Black’s king being stuck in the middle.
Which leaves 2 … Kg6. Of the panel, only ANGUS mentions moving the king forward. It looks very counter-intuitive but it’s really difficult to put away.
In fact the only way to win is 3 Qc4 and then after 3 … Rf8 the sole move is 4 f4
(threat: f5+ as ANGUS pointed out). Even then you have to see that 4 … exf4 White has 5 Ne6+ and 6 Nf4+ which ends the game because there’ll be a discovered check winning the Be7 after the Black king goes to the c1-h6 diagonal.
ANGUS: "It took me ages to find a continuation against 2 … Kg6."
At least he did. I actually gave up on 1 Bxf7+ because I couldn’t find anything in this line.
HIARCS, by the way, doesn’t think much of the source game continuation of 3 Rd3 following 2 … Kg6. I might need to look deeper (or for longer) but the engine seems to think the best White should have is a draw.
Not liking Bxf7+ I ended up looking at 1 Ng5. It looks incredibly childish. Black can’t castle because 1 Ng5 0-0, 2 Bxf7+ Rxf7, 3 Qc4 but there’s 1 … Rf8. PHIL: "doesn’t look like much".
As it happens 2 Bxf7+ still works.
I calculated 1 Ng5 Rf8, 2 Bxf7+ Rxf7, 3 Qc4 Rf8 and now we’re back in the … Ke8 line that MATT, PHIL and ANGUS mention above.
This I managed to calculate 3 Ne6 Qb8, 4 Nxg7+ Kd8, 5 Ne6+ Ke8, 6 Nxg8
In this line c6 will drop too so the black queen has to go to b7 not b8 - which the panel all wanted to do but I did not forsee.
So when all is said and done, 1 Bxf7+ and 1 Ng5 seem to end up at the same thing. White is clearly better but not yet winning.
And what of JUSTIN?
"Obviously I glanced at the f7 sacrifice, which I have no reason to think will actually work, and I considered 1 h3, which I might well play in a game on waiting grounds, except that after 1...O-O I still have to think of something to do. So by a process of elimination, if nothing else, I am going to commit myself with 1 d5."
Which unfortunately is worth 0 points from the Beat the Masters panel.
FINAL SCORES:
Angus, Leon, Matt and Phil all scored 10 points for 1 Bxf7+
I scored 9 points for 1 Ng5
Justin scored 0 for 1 d5
Which is harsh because 1 d5 is a completely decent move. In fact when I looked at this position in more depth after receiving all the Amateurs’ responses it turns out that HIARCS evaluation of the end of the 1 Bxf7+/1 Ng5 mainline and also 1 d5 are very similar.
Definitely better. Clearly better perhaps. But not winning. Given that nearly all the amateurs made reference to the amount of time they took calculating the various lines - and given that sacrifices are an inherently error prone activity, I wonder if Justin’s choice isn’t the best for a real game scenario.
Either that or just decide that Bxf7+ should work out and play it without any analysing too much.
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POINTS
10: Bxf7+
9: Ng5
6: Nh4
3: dxe5, Bg5, Be3
MASTERS
Bxf7+: Flear, Norwood, Pein, J. Littlewood, Botterill
Ng5: Levitt, P. Littlewood, S. Arkell
Nh4: Kosten
SOURCE
Christiansen - Andonov St John’s 1988, 1 Bxf7
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POINTS
10: Bxf7+
9: Ng5
6: Nh4
3: dxe5, Bg5, Be3
MASTERS
Bxf7+: Flear, Norwood, Pein, J. Littlewood, Botterill
Ng5: Levitt, P. Littlewood, S. Arkell
Nh4: Kosten
SOURCE
Christiansen - Andonov St John’s 1988, 1 Bxf7
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