Colle – O’Hanlon, Nice 1930

Published on Sunday, March 8, 2015 in |

One of the most used examples of the classical bishop sacrifice is taken from the game Edgard Colle – John O’Hanlon, Nice 1930. This is rather strange because in this game the normal preconditions before sacrificing the bishop aren’t even met. Some chess players and teachers even considered the sacrifice in this game as unsound. After looking at it more carefully I think that the sacrifice is sound, but that Black will probably be able to survive the attack

Before going to the game I show two positions in which the classical bishop sacrifice enables White to win the game.



Now we will continue with the famous game from Edgard Colle.
Next lesson: The Rook and pawn vs Rook endgame.


Original 2 Responses on CTL to “Colle – O’Hanlon, Nice 1930”

  1. Steven Dowd
    October 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
    Newest analysis – revised editions of Vukovic by Nunn in English (2003) and Treppner in German (2006) as well as issue 3 of Kassiber and Broznik’s Colle book – all show the sacrifice to be correct.
  2. Chess Teacher
    October 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
    I also said that the sacrifice was sound, but with correct counterplay I still believe that Black will be able to survive the attack.
    Das Colle-Koltanowski-System by Bronznik Valeri as well as the footnotes by John Nunn in Vuckovic’s book show the shortcomings in the original analysis of Vuckovic, who considered the sacrifice to be incorrect..

1 reactions:

  1. Unknown on June 15, 2015 at 7:11 AM

    John Nunn is a fine writer, but his analysis is flawed here. In his footnote on p. 140 he concludes his remarks with "21. Bg5!, for example, White has an extremely dangerous attack". After 21...Ke7; it is white who must fight for the draw: 22.Bxf6+ Kxf6; 23.Qh4 Kg7; 24.Qg5+ Kf8; 25.Qh4 Bxh2+; 26.Kxh2 Qc7+; 27.Kg1 = Sorry, no brilliancy prize was justified here.

     

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