As I go on in my journey through Horde Chess, I get the impression that sacrifices of a piece for 2 pawns are hard to make correctly. But what about a piece for 1 pawn? Might be cool, right? Well, I missed an opportunity for one.
In my recent game against graul2win, we reached this position:
I decided to back off with 28… Ne7, giving White an opportunity to arrange the paws for an attack and eventually win. In the analysis afterward, I saw (or, more accurately, Stockfish showed me) I would stand much better after 28… N:e3! The point of this sacrifice is that after 29. f:e3 Kd8
ֲBlack plan for 30… Re8 and 31… R:e3, with a rook intrusion and division of the white pawns
And if White tries to defend with 31. e4, then Black will capture 31… B:f4 32. g:f4 Q:f4
Again, with a very promising intrusion.
I feel like I couldn’t really see all of this in a fast game (3 minutes and 2 seconds increment per move), which is quite unfortunate. I do hope to find the time to play some longer Horde Chess games, with 20 minutes per side or more, and then actually perform such nice tactics.
