Double Rook Sacrifice

     I have done some posts on Grigory Levenfish (March 21, 1889 – February 9, 1961) before. 
Botvinnink's Early Rival 
Levenfish - Botvinnik Match 1937 
Evaluating a Position the Levenfish Way 

     I have his Selected Game and Memoirs, but it’s in Russian so I can’t read it, but am able to play over the games and variations. In describing Levenfish’s play in The Soviet School of Chess, Kotov and Yudovich wrote, “Levenfish’s style in the middlegame is universal. He has an excellent command of the methods of positional maneuvering and a keen grasp of strategy...His chief strong point however is tactics. A resourceful tactician, he plans complex and disguised combinations, foresees combinational attacks long ahead of time, sets ingenious traps and conceives combinational blows which at first glance appear impossible.” 
     Other terms used to describe his play include terms such as smashing attack, a stunning blow, a sledge hammer blow, etc. Who wouldn’t want to play over his games? Unfortunately no collection of his games exist in English. 
     So, when he met Alekhine in the following game, you know there will be fireworks. The event was a 1st Category tournament (modern day USCF Expert) in St. Petersburg, held in March-April 1912. Alekhine finished a half point ahead of Levenfish followed by Ilya Rabinovich and Peter Romanovsky who tied for 3rd and 4th. 
     The game is a classic double Rook sacrifice. Double Rook sacrifices are rare and in most cases they start with either ...Qxb2 by black or Qxb7 by white. In return for the two Rooks the attacker gains one or two tempos that the opponent spends capturing the Rooks and then is unable to get the Queen back to defend himself. In the meantime the extra tempo or two is all it takes to secure a winning attack. 
     The opening is a Schmid Benoni which is basically a normal Benoni where White hasn’t played c2-c4. In 1960 German GM Lothar Schmid, played it against world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Alekhine didn’t think too highly of such defenses, but that was before hypermodern concepts were understood. As for the Schmid Benoni, in general it’s thought to be sound, but a bit better for white. 
     I am experimenting with the game viewer from Chess Pastebin. It’s just a web page that allows you to post games that you will then be able to share either on a web page or with a link. It’s been around since 2006 and the interface is nice. If readers have a preference for this one or the one from Caissa’s Web just make a comment.