Origin of the Dragon Sacrifice?

Submitted by bemweeks on Sat, 12/20/2008 at 7:08am.

Does anyone know who was the first player to use the ...Rxc3 exchange sacrifice in the Dragon Defense? I found one example from 1968-69 that I documented here -- Opening Exchange Sac [B7x] -- but it's clear from the notes to that game that the idea was already well known at the time. Wading through historical games is like looking for a needle in a haystack and I'm hoping a member of Chess.com has better references than I do. Anybody?

» posted in Mark's Blog

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Comments:

by marsh2t - 2 months ago
American Samoa American Samoa

Member Since: Sep 2009
Member Points: 2

here i

come gegegegeg

hekhekhekhel

by CM streetfighter - 11 months ago
Glenrothes Scotland

Member Since: Jul 2008
Member Points: 544

Here is one from 1950 featuring Kortschnoi on the receiving end of a positional ...Rxc3 sac.

Pretty sure it's not the earliest example...for one of the most recent, and definitely one to know if you're a Dragon player, check out my article 'A Pattern of Violence'

Streetfighter

by bemweeks - 11 months ago
Brussels Belgium

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 25

rigamagician - I'm impressed by the speed you found these. To be more specific, I'm looking for early games where ...Rxc3 was played as a *positional* sacrifice in the Yugoslav Variation of the Dragon defense. The two examples you gave are *tactical* sacrifices to eliminate the Knight's protecting some other square. Is the Sokolsky - Veresov game one of the earliest examples of the Yugoslav Variation?

quny - Loading rigamagician's PGN into a game viewer makes it easy to play through the game.

Thanks to both for the fast response. - Mark

by quny - 11 months ago
virginia United States

Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 144

and this one

by quny - 11 months ago
virginia United States

Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 144

see

by rigamagician - 11 months ago
Toronto Canada

Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 3907

Here are a couple of earlier examples.

[Event "Bad Oeynhausen m"]
[Site "Bad Oeynhausen"]
[Date "1922.08.??"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Gerbec, Theodor"]
[Black "Colle, Edgar"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B77"]
[EventDate "1922.08.??"]
[EventType "match"]
[EventRounds "4"]
[EventCountry "GER"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bc4 Bd7 7. f3 g6 8. Be3
Bg7 9. Qd2 O-O 10. g4 Rc8 11. Bb3 Qa5 12. h4 Ne5 13. Kf2 Nexg4+ 14. fxg4 Rxc3
15. Bd5 Nxg4+ 0-1

[Event "URS-ch sf"]
[Site "Leningrad"]
[Date "1938.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Sokolsky, Alexey"]
[Black "Veresov, Gavriil N"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B76"]
[EventDate "1938.??.??"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "17"]
[EventCountry "URS"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. f3 Bg7 7. Be3 Nc6 8. Qd2
O-O 9. O-O-O Bd7 10. g4 Rc8 11. h4 h5 12. gxh5 Nxh5 13. Rg1 Qa5 14. Rg5 Qd8 15.
Be2 Kh7 16. Rdg1 Nxd4 17. Bxd4 Bxd4 18. Qxd4 Nf4 19. h5 Rxc3 20. Qd2 Nxe2+ 21.
Qxe2 Rc5 22. hxg6+ Kg7 23. Rxc5 dxc5 24. gxf7+ Kxf7 25. Qh2 Ke6 26. Rg5 Rxf3
27. Qe5+ Kf7 28. Rg7+ Kf8 29. Rg1 Rf6 30. Qh5 Qc8 31. e5 Rf2 32. Qh6+ 1-0

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