Common Patterns : Breaking the Bg4 Pin

Chess is ultimately about pattern recognition, regardless if the the use case is tactical or strategical. It is therefore necessary to expose oneself to as many patterns as often as possible to get better. One of those patterns which I come across often in my games yet I don't see mentioned very often is the breaking of the Bg4 Pin. A black bishop on g4, a white knight on f3 and a queen on d1 is one of the most common piece configurations in the entire game. It only makes sense that every now and then an opportunity arises to move the knight regardless of the pin - either because of a tactical justification or because it initiates the noblest of all sacrifices, a positional queen sacrifice.

probably the most famous example is the so called legal's mate, and I'm sure you have seen it before:

This blog will present to you three more instructive examples of this underappreciated motif, so hopefully after reading it you'll be fully alert whenever this is possible in your own games.

The first example comes from a Ruy Lopez, specifically the Tarasch Variation with 5. Nc3

White sacrifices the Queen and a pawn for the bishop pair and a knight, losing only 1 material point in total. While the white pieces may look slightly loose, the superior piece activity makes up for it, and white enjoys a small edge. The only reason white is not clearly better is due to bad piece coordination and the fall of the e pawn. What is surprising is that 82% of players that reached this position on Lichess found this Queen sacrifice, which means it must be quite intuitive or part of common opening knowledge.

But what happens if we can't get three pieces for the Lady? Can two still suffice?

Yes they can! Turns out if you can get the opponents king stuck in the center and have strong piece coordination, that's already worth an extra piece. In this case, the light square dominance together with the monster-knight on e6 make the black side very cramped and uneasy, and f6 was a retrospective positional disaster. That's what happens if you don't listen to Ben Finegold I guess.

The last example comes from one of my own games, a bullet game. I had decided to try out the Kings Gambit for some fun, but I was basically out of prep on move 2 and just winging it. So when the critical moment came on move 7, It took me 8.3 seconds to play Nxd4! and I'm quite proud of that. I must be honest to admit I hadn't really calculated everything, my thought process was more along the lines of " let's just go for this, it looks fun!"

I had seen that after 8. Bxb5, 8... c6 was the only move because it lures my bishop to c6, occupying the square my knight would like to land on. But only after the game did I see the continuation 9. Bxc6 Ke7 10. Nf5 Kf6. 11. Kxd1! that allows for great positional compensation for the queen. You can imagine how happy I was after turning on the engine after the game and finding out that the sacrifice which was only played in 1% of games was not only playable but might have been the best chance to play for a win!
I must admit, I was quite disappointed when my opponent played 8... Ke7, immediately blundering the queen and a piece back. Although happy that I won, I was kinda looking forward to my positional queen sacrifice turning into an immortal king hunt :( someday It's gonna happen.

Bonus Example:

I had originally intended to include 3 examples, but the next one I played while this blog was already in work so the opportunity is too good not to include it. It is another bullet game, which seems to be the time control I get these moves most often. Or maybe it's just because I've been playing too much bullet lately...

Against the Botvinnik Carls defense Im already quite aware of this pattern since there is a trap that a third of all my opponents in the botvinnik variation fall into that involves breaking that pin.
(For those interested it's this line: 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. c4 Bg4 6. cxd5 Qxd5 7. Nc3 Qd8 8. d5 Nxe5 9. Nxe5 Bxd1 10. Bb5+ )

But despite that, Im not sure I would have seen 10. Nxd4 hadn't I been writing this blog at the time.

If black had played the correct move 11... Qc7 instead of 11... dxc6??, this would have also been a two piece for the queen imbalance. However the development advantage of white is just huge since black traded their only two developed pieces for our queen on d1, which we will even retake with the rook to bring another piece into the battle. Which is why white clearly has the upper hand.

What I learned myself is that apart from often being good moves, these queen sacrifices are also strong moves from a psychological standpoint: either your opponent thinks you've blundered and get's overconfident, or he is simply bamboozled and doesn't know what to do at all. In addition also they are just a lot of fun to play which is ultimately the goal of chess, isn't it?

So thanks for reading this blog, hope you got something out of it, and have a great day!