A strong exchange sacrifice to get a better endgame!

Submitted by mauerblume on Mon, 09/21/2009 at 3:50am.

After a sharp gambit in Slav defense white has a strong kingside attack. Black decides to give an exchange ( rook for minor piece) to stop the white initiative and go for a better endgame.-

Why a better endgame? Because the pair of bishops and the d-pawn would bring white surely under pressure.

Here our starting position:

 

 

Normally black players would try here to save here the rook with 1. ...Rf8 and give the bishop back with 2. exd6. But this would not stop the white initiative. It  would presumely go on with  2. ...Nd7 3. Nf3 and Bxh6 and a strong kingside attack.

So black decided to give the exchange to stop the kingside initiative and to go for a better endgame

1. ...Bf8!

White took the rook and may have felt well for a moment. But then black started a very successful 2-step plan

***

A) Exchanging the queens

 

 

B)  Winning the endgame

 

 

Here more about exchange sacrifice:

My best loss: powerplay in the f-file!

"Sacrify material for the initiative!"

And about passed pawns:

The power of a passed pawn at the seventh row!

» posted in mauerblume's Blog
 

Comments:

by alansky - 40 days ago
baliuag, bulacan Philippines
Member Since: Oct 2009
Member Points: 12

clever

by Syntax_error - 54 days ago
Nowhere Canada
Member Since: May 2009
Member Points: 94

Very cool

by kunduk - 56 days ago
kolkata India
Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 848

good enough..

by exigentsky - 56 days ago
CA United States
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 376

That was instructive. Thanks!

by Knightguy - 58 days ago
Indiana United States
Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 1282

Nice lesson Heinrich. I am coming to appreciate reaching a good endgame, however it takes to get there.Smile

by tushu - 1 month ago
Dhaka Bangladesh
Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 4995

Again another great article, Heinrich. An amazing example of thinking "out of the box" chess.

 

ps - A small request. Could it be possible to provide the whole game from start to finish or a link?

by prjr - 2 months ago
Doral United States
Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 41

Awesome!

by mauerblume - 2 months ago
Duesseldorf Germany
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 5462

Ah, thanks for the correction !

by laobeijing94 - 2 months ago
Beijing China
Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 374

nice!!

 

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