Chess Tactics: Attacking castled King with the classic Bishop sacrifice Part 2

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In Part 1 of Chess Tactics: Attacking castled King with the classic Bishop sacrifice, we looked at the main variation of the bishop sacrifice in Part 2 we will look at some of the possible variations.

Variation #1 – Capturing the Knight by dark squared black Bishop

bishopcapture

7. Bxh7+ Kxh7
8. Ng5+ Bxg5
9. hxg5+ Kg6
10. Qh5+ Kf5
11. Qh3+ Kg6
12. Qh7# 1 – 0

 
Variation #2 – Moving the King to h6

kingh6

7. Bxh7+ Kxh7
8. Ng5+ Kh6
9. Nxe6+ …. Here the black Queen is lost following a discovered check from Bishop at c1

 
Variation #3 – moving the king to g6

kingg6

7. Bxh7+ Kxh7
8. Ng5+ Kg6
9. h5+ Kh6
10. Nxe6+ …. Discovered check and threat on black Queen

 
Variation #4 – moving the king to f5 after g6

kf5move

7. Bxh7+ Kxh7
8. Ng5+ Kg6
9. h5+ Kf5
10. g4# 1 – 0

 
All the variations lead to one conclusion – victory to white led by the sacrifice of the light-squared bishop at h7. The attacking prowess of the bishop is unleashed at its entirety in the attacking of the castled king.

Ironically, the Greco’s sacrifice of the classic bishop sacrifice, which was recorded as early as 1619 in Greco’s handbook, was systematically reviewed and in 1911 by E. Vollemy. Since then, this classic bishop sacrifice is occasionally used as an attacking option, especially by the player playing white pieces.

Continue reading Part 3 of Classical Bishop Sacrifice….