Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: A positional pawn sacrifice

by Robert Ris
11/5/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at a an interesting positional pawn sacrifice in the Flohr-Mikenas Attack (1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 d5 4.e5 d4 5.exf6 dxc3 6.bxc3 Qxf6 7.Nf3 b6 8.c5!?), which Jorden van Foreest used to beat the strong Indian Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly at the Grand Swiss in Riga in just 32 moves. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
Pattern recognition is an important tool in modern chess, as it helps you to understand better the characteristics of a position. Particularly when you have been confronted with a surprise opening system played by your opponent, it helps when you can just

Jorden van Foreest's pawn sacrifice clearly caught Surya Shekhar Ganguly by surprise and the Indian Grandmaster ended up in a very passive position. Jorden then went on to win a fine attacking game in only 32 moves, but things could have gone even better for him had he found a stronger idea on move 14.

Exercise: White has excellent compensation for the pawn and different ideas to build up an initiative on the kingside. What is the most challenging one?

 
Jorden van Foreest vs Surya Shekhar Ganguly, chess.com Grand Swiss, Riga 2021
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Robert is an International Master who mostly spends his time training and coaching talented youngsters. On the PlayChess server The Fast and the Furious is a popular show where he explains sharp opening lines for a wider audience. He is also a well-known ChessBase author who produced numerous DVDs and regularly contributes to ChessBase Magazine as well. Since 2015 he is the organizer of the Dutch Rapid Championships in his home town Amstelveen. He has started a YouTube channel with chess analysis as well.

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