At the risk of parroting Chernev 1. Rxe7 crushes black. The game went: 1. ... Qxe7 2. Qf3 Kg7 3. Nce4 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Qe6 5. Bxf6+ Kg8 6. Qf4 1-0
After playing it through, I also spent a lot of time looking at the board before 3. Nce4...I smiled at how, despite being covered by a pawn, queen and knight, it was so vulnerable an invasion point for black. The pinned knight, the king pulled like a moth to flame on g7...awesome.
And horrific as it sounds, given Yasser Seirawan's affection for calling rooks pigs (at least when paired on the seventh rank!), I have to equate the rook blowing up the bishop on e7 to the ancient practice of covering a pig in tar or pitch or whatever, lighting it up and sending it squealing and flaming into the enemy ranks, causing confusion and horror!
(My original title got lost in a browser reload, but I now have to tag any rook sacrifice with Pig on fire :P)
At first glance--at least to a patzer like me--the position looks "normal" except maybe for the g6 advance.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that these players would even think about putting a Knight on e4...97% of the time, I'd just assume it's infeasible because of the pawn.