Published 12/23/24
A couple of days ago, I found myself in an intriguing middle game position in a blitz game where I had the tempting option to sacrifice my queen for two minor pieces which would severely weaken my opponent’s king.
We had reached the following position:
Now, of course, there was the possibility of playing Qd2 and entering an equal position, but I opted for Qxg7! which sacrificed the queen for the black bishop and knight.
A few moves later we reached the following position where the black king was very exposed on h6. Following Nf6, Qc7 was the accurate response to maintain equality, but my opponent opted for Qc8 which gave me a serious advantage.
First Exercise: White to Play (Answer is below)
Now that we’ve reached this position after black plays Kf5, there is only one move that keeps the winning advantage for white. However, this move is very unorthodox and quite hard to find when you have so many tempting options.
Exercise 2: White to play (Solution is below)
In the game itself, I played h4 instead of Ng4 which brought the game back to equality. After missed opportunities from both sides and a time scramble, I ended up losing the game.
Overall, I just wanted to share an interesting example of a queen sacrifice that shows that material isn’t always the most important thing. Even though some of the exercise solutions were hard to find, I hope you enjoyed following along in the variations and the king hunt in the center of the board.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the article! If you have any suggestions on what I should write about in future articles, let me know in the comment section below!
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