The American IM Jeremy_Silman famous for his instructive chessbooks published a few weeks ago at chess.com a nice article about how much fun analyzing a game can be. Some games are filled with subtle maneuvers or insanely wonderful tactics. Others just offer only one special moment. Such moment also occurred in one of my most recent games which I discovered while analyzing the game with my strongest engines. Not only did I never consider the surprising desperado shown by our electronic chessmasters but it took me also some time to fully understand the strength of the idea.
However before I show the critical position, I first need to explain what "Desperado" means. Wikipedia gives several explanations as people seem to use it for different occasions. In this article, a desperado is a piece which can't be saved anymore and decides to sell his live dearly.
Limiting the material losses by grabbing some pieces is probably the most traditional desperado. Less obvious but not necessarily worse is a desperado destroying the pawn-structure of the opponent. A trivial example was already covered in an analyses published in the article lars schandorff. My f4 pawn (technically also a piece) can't be defended properly and is pushed to break the white pawn-structure.
Probably the best hidden desperado is when only a tempo can be won. It doesn't feel natural to spend time playing a desperado which doesn't give anything tangible in the form of material or structure. Such special desperado only can happen when the position fulfills some specific conditions. Without the desperado the opponent can capture by playing an active move. With the desperado the opponent will only be able to capture by misplacing a piece. Besides this misplaced piece can be attacked so another tempo must be spent to defend by the opponent. The recent example from my game played in Open Gent against Ted Barendse, shown below will clarify the theme.
So in the game I missed the desperado which allowed black the active capture with Nxg6 and concur the initiative. The desperado g7 would've allowed me to win an important tempo leading to a much better position than I got in the game.
In my practice I found another 2 examples of this type of desperado. It is probably not a real surprise that both are occurring in the opening-phase. It is just much more likely somebody finds a non-trivial move in the opening as identical positions are popping up more frequently and concrete theoretical knowledge plays a much larger role. The first example is from a line which I discussed already briefly in my article g4 in the najdorf.
In my practice I found another 2 examples of this type of desperado. It is probably not a real surprise that both are occurring in the opening-phase. It is just much more likely somebody finds a non-trivial move in the opening as identical positions are popping up more frequently and concrete theoretical knowledge plays a much larger role. The first example is from a line which I discussed already briefly in my article g4 in the najdorf.
Without the desperado white captures with the active Bxf4. With the desperado, black will win time with Ne5 if white plays the although non forcing move Bxf3. A very similar idea can also be found in a popular sideline of the Spanish which already popped up in my article friends.
Without the desperado Koen captured with the active Nxd4 move. With the desperado d3 black can win an important tempo later via Ne5 or Nc5.
All my examples are built around pawns as desperado. Other pieces influence a much larger zone so more likely will play a different type of desperado. Nevertheless I guess a rare desperado for only a tempo probably also exists for bigger pieces. Readers knowing more examples especially with bigger pieces are welcome to react.
Brabo
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