Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: An early (and powerful) pawn sacrifice

by Robert Ris
12/30/2021 – In the final episode of the year, Dutch trainer Robert Ris looks at a nice miniature in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, played at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Warsaw. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
By playing the London System, with 1.d4 followed by 2.Nf3 and 3.Bf4, White can avoid a theoretical discussion and instead use natural ability plus a knowledge of plans. The weight of the struggle tends to shift towards the middlegame, but White can also pull off devastatingly quick wins should Black be unaware of the dangers.

This week, many fascinating games were played at the World Championships Rapid & Blitz in Warsaw. In the final episode of the year, I’ll have a look at the game between Stelios Halkias from Greece and Alan Pichot from Argentina.

The game featured a nice miniature in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted. The Greek GM employed the pawn sacrifice 7.e4!?, an old idea which has recently been taken up by various strong players again as the idea has proven to be very dangerous for Black. 

Wish you all a good ending of 2021 and wish you all the best for the New Year!

Exercise: Taken from Van Foreest vs Navara. This time I’ll challenge you to find White’s ideas after 18...Qf4, 18...Nc6 and 18...h6 (Navara chose the latter option).

 
Van Foreest vs Navara, Warsaw 2021
Black to move

You can move the pieces on the live diagram!

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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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