A Sham Queen Sacrifice

      In his book The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, Rudolf Spielmann distinguishes between real and sham sacrifices. 
      A sham sacrifice leads to a forced and immediate advantage, usually in the form of mate or regaining the sacrificed material after a forced line.
     In a real sacrifice the loss of material is offset by other compensation. 
     Bent Larsen wrote that giving up the Q for a R and two minor pieces is sometimes called a Queen sacrifice, but since a R plus two minor pieces is more valuable than the Q, he believed it should not be considered a sacrifice.
     In his book Spielmann doesn’t say anything specific about Queen sacrifices, but gives as examples Spielmqnn-Maroczy, Vienna, 1907 and Spielmann-Moller, Gothenburg, 1920. 

White mates in 8 moves: 

     In the above position I made a rare (for me) Queen sacrifice. It was a sham sacrifice because as Stockfish pointed out, I had a forced mate. At the time I thought it was a real sacrifice because, not seeing the mate, I envisioned my R strutting back and forth along the seventh rank capturing material and leaving me with, if not a mate, a material as well as a positional advantage and an easy win. Post mortem analysis with Stockfish convinced me that even with a huge evaluation in my favor there was no guarantee I could have won the ending as I envisioned it.

This is the position I envisioned:

     It didn't matter because we never reached the above position. In the first diagram after 17.Qh5+ Nxh5 18.Bg6+ nothing happened for about two minutes then I got a message that the disgusting little twit had left the site.

Play Online Chess

[Event "Online Game 10"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2020.4.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Tartajubow"]
[Black "A Little Twit"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{Modern Defense: Averbakh Variation} 1. e4 e6 2. c4 {I always play this hoping
for 2...d5 3.exd5 exd4 4.d4 which I like as white.} 2... d6 {The Modern (or
Robatsch) Defense in which black allows white to occupy the ideal center with
pawns on d4 and e4, then proceeds to attack and undermine it. The Modern is
closely related to the Pirc, the primary difference being that in the Modern,
black delays developing his N to f6 which gives white the option of blunting
the g7-bishop with c2-c3. There are numerous transpositional possibilities
between the two openings.} 3. d4 {Averbakh center (Ps on c4, d4 and e4) where
white can attack on the Q-side. It's one of the toughest systems for black to
face. Black will play an eventual ...e5 break. Of course the game can
transpose into the K-Indian.} 3... g6 {This probably is not as good as 3...Nf6
sticking to Modern lines. In this K-Indian type set up he has wasted tiem
with ...e6.} 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. f4 {I just like the 4Ps attack and never miss a
chance to play it.} 5... Nd7 6. Nf3 {In Ludvigsen,F (2085)-Tisma,I
(2206)/Paracin SRB 2015 black tried 6...Ne7 but after 7.Be3 O-O 8.Bd3 c5 white
stood well} 6... b6 7. Bd3 Bb7 {In Lisanti,A (2350)-Fritsche,L (2365)/GER 1998
black played the better 7...Ne7, but white still had the more promising
position.} 8. O-O Ne7 9. Be3 {Black doesn't have any goos P breaks. If 9...d5
10.cxd5 exd5 11.e5 followed by the advance of the f-Pawn. And, if 9...e5
01.fxe5 dxe5 11.d5 with an excellent position. His best move is probably
9...O-O and then await developments.} 9... c5 {This turns out to be the worst
of the P breaks!} 10. d5 { Also quite good was 10.Nb5 putting some seriosu
pressur eon black's d-Pawn. Now black has two playable options: 10...O-O or
10...exd5. In either case white would be slightly better.} 10... Bxc3
{Apparently black was concerned about Nb5, but this move, weakening his K-side
is much worse.} 11. bxc3 {Black is facing a situation where because his B is
gone, catling would be very dangerous, but so is leaving his K in the center.
Maybe something like 11... Qc7 was his best chance.} 11... e5 {The
auto-annotation feature in Fritz slapped two ?? on this move because of
12.fxe5! Nxe5 13.Nxe5 dxe5 14.Bh6 and black is helpless. At least he is if he
happened to be playing Stockfish. Fortunately for black that wasn't the case.
I am not seeing a +6.00 advantage for white after 14.Bh6.} 12. f5 {In the post
mortem Stockfish didn't think this was too bad (about 1.75 in white's favor)
and recommends 12...h6 to control g5 then after 13.fxg6 Nxg6 white has to come
up with a plan.} 12... gxf5 {Opening up paths to his K...always nice for the
attacker!} 13. exf5 Nf6 {Here the engine likes 14.Bh6 threatening a fork on g7
so 14...Rg8 15.Bg5 with an excellent position.} 14. Ng5 {I like this move
(headed for 36) better than the suggested engine move. Actually, there's not
that much difference in the engine evaluation betwwen this and 14.Bh6.} 14...
h6 {There really wasn't anything better.} 15. Ne6 { Stockfish's evaluation
puts white's advantage at a little over 3 Ps, but hrere's a little secret: if
black plays 15...Qd7 I had absolutrly no idea how to continue! Stockfish
recommends 16.Bf2 to be followed by Bh4.} 15... fxe6 {This is one of the worst
moves on the board.} 16. fxe6 {Obviously the threat is 17. Rxf6 and he can't
play 16...Nfg8 because 17.Qh5+ mates in three. Equalkly hopeless is 16...Qc7
17.Rxf6 O-O-O 18.Bh6.} 16... Neg8 {Now he can meet my intended 17.Bg6+ with
17...Kf8. Stockfish puts white's advantage at 6 Ps, but to my eyes, I'm not
seeing that big of an advantage.} 17. Qh5+ {In auto-annotation mode Fitz
awards two !! for this move which mates in 7.} 17... Nxh5 18. Bg6+ {Here is
the mating line: 18...Ke7 19. Rf7+ Ke8 20. Raf1 Qf6 21. R7xf6+ Kd8 22. Rf8+
Kc7 23. R1f7+ Ne7 24. Rxe7 mate. The only thing is I didn't see 20.Raf1 and
envisioned the R sliding back and forth picking off the B and a-Pawn then
going to d7 with a double check and capturing the Q, also with a check.
Finally ending the series with Bxh5. The fly in the ointment is that in the
final position, white has two Bs and two Ps vs a R and N which yields only a
slight endgame advantage. It turns out black was a real jerk and after about
two minutes a message popped up that he had left the game.} 1-0