I gave my opponent a Greek Gift and it turns out that doing so would have given advantage to him, but he fell into a trap...
Any tips? How do I know when to sacrifice? How do I deal with a move like Qxa2 to regain my pawn and/or get advantage?
@A_0123456
Some Greek Gifts are obvious and easy, clear cut. Some Greek Gift positions can be complicated to calculate.
Sometimes the black king can hide well on h6, sometimes it can flee after f7f5, sometimes there are good defenders to help the black king.
In your case there turned out to be a good defender with the a2 queen. After Ra3 and Rc3 it could have been a draw. After that black blundered with Qf5 instead of Qg6 (which offers to exchange one of the white active pieces).
Conclusion from your game : light square bishops and queens that can go to the b1-h7 diagonal can be good defenders.
An interesting and nice GM game with the Greek Gift is this one.
See also the comments here :
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1917033
Some Greek Gifts are obvious and easy, clear cut. Some Greek Gift positions can be complicated to calculate.
Sometimes the black king can hide well on h6, sometimes it can flee after f7f5, sometimes there are good defenders to help the black king.
In your case there turned out to be a good defender with the a2 queen. After Ra3 and Rc3 it could have been a draw. After that black blundered with Qf5 instead of Qg6 (which offers to exchange one of the white active pieces).
Conclusion from your game : light square bishops and queens that can go to the b1-h7 diagonal can be good defenders.
An interesting and nice GM game with the Greek Gift is this one.
See also the comments here :
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1917033
How do you know? Calculate. You had to castle first. The defensive resource 18...Qb1+ and 17...Qg6 stems from your king being uncastled yet. It is good to exploit a weakness of the opposing king's position, but do not neglect the safety of your own king.
It was the same situation here: my opponent was very confident with his Greek Gift knowledge and went on to do it, not calculating at all, and he didn't consider my defensive options at all, therefore missing 15...Nf6.
I had noticed Qb1+, but for some reason, Qg6 entirely missed my line of thinking...
@A_0123456 #1
Before making a Greek gift to your opponent, pay attention to the following: 1) Can the black knight enter f6? 2) Can the black king escape through the square e7?
Before making a Greek gift to your opponent, pay attention to the following: 1) Can the black knight enter f6? 2) Can the black king escape through the square e7?
@ujcn My opponent had an entirely different way of escaping...
@A_0123456 Okay, I guess I was just lucky.
There are some rules for the greek gift. Of course there should be no knight on f6 (f8), and no knight that could reach that square.
No bishop and no queen should appear on the b1-h7- diagonal. If Black had played Qg6 instead of Qb5 he would have gained a tempo and the point.
If the defender could ever defend h7 with a piece then in most of the cases the sac is loosing.
No bishop and no queen should appear on the b1-h7- diagonal. If Black had played Qg6 instead of Qb5 he would have gained a tempo and the point.
If the defender could ever defend h7 with a piece then in most of the cases the sac is loosing.
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