The very first position in the book was from a game played in
the 1993 championship of The Netherlands between GMs Jeroen Piket and Gennadi
Sosonko. Of the starting position Soltis
wrote, “An amateur looking at this position will recognize the basic elements: White
is attacking on the K-side, Black on the Q-side. There are potentially weak white Ps at f3 and
d5 and blacxk ones at e7 and h7. White would
love to occupy the holes at c6 and e6.
Black is looking forward to the endgame where his two Bs and outside
passed P (…h5!) will be trumps.”
Soltis points out there is a lot to notice here, adding that
the master sees more than the amateur and recognizes an idea for White…an attack
on h7. One method is 1.Rh3 and 2.Rdh1,
but that would involve a sacrifice of White’s d-Pawn which Soltis says is
unclear. Soltis then adds, “He also sees
another method of exploiting that idea and quickly calculates the basic winning
line.” I am disregarding a couple of
obvious typos in the book here.
Curiously, none of the engines I checked the position with
suggested 1.Rxh7. They saw 1.Qe4 as
slightly favoring White and any R moves, including the sacrifice, as drawing.
It’s a good thing
engines weren’t involved in this game or we would have been deprived of Piket’s
sacrifice. Even if Sosonko’s play could
have been improved upon, that doesn’t take anything away from the R sac. Soltis’ analysis of the position was
superficial, but you will almost always find a lot
of holes in published analysis, especially if the games were played in the pre-strong
engine days. Piket’s sacrifice also makes
the point that OTB and CC chess simply aren’t the same and GMs find resources
that, even if they aren’t completely sound, make for interesting chess.
Before looking at the analysis, you might what to set up the
position and record your own analysis because the position is in the section of
the book on calculating. Or you could
let an engine analyze for a lot longer on a more powerful computer and find
even more hidden resources for both sides; I don’t know, but it is an
interesting position to study because there is a lot to calculate.
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