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The bishop sacrifice on h7 (or h2), also known as the Greek gift sacrifice, is one of the most thematic sacrifices in all of chess.
Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, Aeneid (II, 49)
(Beware of Greeks bearing gifts)
When it comes to learning and improving your middle game play, pattern recognition is one of the best ways to do that. That is why I will try to cover as many thematic attacking, tactical or positional patterns in this series, starting with the Greek Gift!
The Greek Gift is a nickname given to the sacrifices on h7/h2. The name should imply that the bishop should not be taken (even though you lose all the same if you don’t), referring to the episode from the Trojan war, in which the Greek army was hidden in the horse the Greeks gave Trojans as a peaceful gift. The sacrifice is often just as cunning and as subtle, hence the name.
It most often includes the cooperation of bishop, knight and queen, but can often work without the knight, which can be replaced by a rook or the second bishop entering the battlefield.
During real games, the situation will not be as simple as in the textbook examples in which the perfect position is set up. You will have to calculate the consequences of Bxh7 in depth, because (as seen in the example where Yasser Seirawan magnificently survived the gift) you could be in trouble and end up a piece down for not much otherwise.
Once you know the pattern, make sure you don’t end up wasting too much time during real games trying to get it to work. I have done that once, and all I got was 45 minutes less on the clock. Accept the fact that, even though it might look tempting and good, sometimes it just doesn’t work!
#chess #greekgift