Impelled by his engineer’s mindset, the former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik wrote a short essay to answer a simple question: ‘What is a combination?’ I like his succinct conclusion, which certainly captures the essence: ‘A combination is a forced variation with a sacrifice.’
Like the fizz in champagne, the sacrificial element is the sine qua non and the va va voom. In its absence, a forcing manoeuvre of the pieces may, like wine, still have much to recommend it, but it is a different libation. Nonetheless, an avid taxonomist might like to ponder Nigel Short’s victory against Jan Timman from Tilburg 1991, where the sacrifice of a rook is incidental to an extraordinary king procession. (The game can be found online.) Combination, or manoeuvre?
An exquisite queen and rook sacrifice was uncorked this month at the World Girls Under 18 Championship. Enterprising play in the middle-game prepared the way for Shuvalova’s sparkling combination.
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