One of the most used examples of the classical bishop sacrifice is taken from the game Edgard Colle – John O’Hanlon, Nice 1930. This is rather strange because in this game the normal preconditions before sacrificing the bishop aren’t even met. Some chess players and teachers even considered the sacrifice in this game as unsound. After looking at it more carefully I think that the sacrifice is sound, but that Black will probably be able to survive the attack.
Before going to the game I show two positions in which the classical bishop sacrifice enables White to win the game.
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Now we will continue with the famous game from Edgard Colle.
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1.d4
( 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 ( 3… Bb4 4.e5 Ne7 5.Qg4 O-O 6.Nf3 Nd7 7.Bd3 c5 ) 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nf3 Bb4 6.Bd3 O-O are in fact better examples of this classical bishop sacrifice )
1… d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3 c5 4.c3 e6 5.Bd3 Bd6 6.Nbd2 Nbd7 7.O-O O-O 8.Re1 Re8 9.e4 dxe4 10.Nxe4 Nxe4 11.Bxe4 cxd4 12.Bxh7+ Kxh7 13.Ng5+ Kg6
( 15… fxe6?! is even worse 16.Qd3+ Kh6 17.Nxe6+ Bf4 18.Bxf4+ g5 19.hxg5+ Qxg5 20.Bxg5+ Kh5 21.Qf5 dxc3 22.Ng7# )
Next lesson: The Rook and pawn vs Rook endgame.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Newest analysis – revised editions of Vukovic by Nunn in English (2003) and Treppner in German (2006) as well as issue 3 of Kassiber and Broznik’s Colle book – all show the sacrifice to be correct.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I also said that the sacrifice was sound, but with correct counterplay I still believe that Black will be able to survive the attack.
Das Colle-Koltanowski-System by Bronznik Valeri as well as the footnotes by John Nunn in Vuckovic’s book show the shortcomings in the original analysis of Vuckovic, who considered the sacrifice to be incorrect..