Funny opening disaster in the dragon • page 1/1 • Game Analysis • lichess.org

https://lichess.org/Ca8ZtcMYwEY6

I forgot/failed to see in the game on move 10 that Bh6 can be met with Bxh6 and then Nxd4, and so is unproblematic. Then a few moves later I just didn't have enough time to execute the usual plan, and got blown off the board. Typical Sicilian Dragon experience! :)

https://lichess.org/Ca8ZtcMYwEY6 I forgot/failed to see in the game on move 10 that Bh6 can be met with Bxh6 and then Nxd4, and so is unproblematic. Then a few moves later I just didn't have enough time to execute the usual plan, and got blown off the board. Typical Sicilian Dragon experience! :)

Goran_Pastek

Hi @george_chess,
I am not very familiar with that Najdorf-like rook sacrifice on c3, but isn't it usually played to destructurate the long castle, so that it only works if the rook is recaptured by a pawn? Here, once the queens are exchanged, there don't seem to be enough pieces to attack the white king, and Black is left down the exchange.

Hi @george_chess, I am not very familiar with that Najdorf-like rook sacrifice on c3, but isn't it usually played to destructurate the long castle, so that it only works if the rook is recaptured by a pawn? Here, once the queens are exchanged, there don't seem to be enough pieces to attack the white king, and Black is left down the exchange.

george_chess

@Goran_Pastek said ^

Hi @george_chess,
I am not very familiar with that Najdorf-like rook sacrifice on c3, but isn't it usually played to destructurate the long castle, so that it only works if the rook is recaptured by a pawn? Here, once the queens are exchanged, there don't seem to be enough pieces to attack the white king, and Black is left down the exchange.

Yeah, the exchange sacrifice doesn't work in this case, but I have seen some 9.Bc4 lines where Black can trade queens and still get an equal endgame since the weak pawns can be targeted effectively. It's hard to evaluate if it's sound or not in such a case without studying lines beforehand though. Unfortunately, I only know theory through move 9 currently along with some typical motifs, so I still make a lot of game-ruining mistakes like this one.

@Goran_Pastek said [^](/forum/redirect/post/jR6zjrK9) > Hi @george_chess, > I am not very familiar with that Najdorf-like rook sacrifice on c3, but isn't it usually played to destructurate the long castle, so that it only works if the rook is recaptured by a pawn? Here, once the queens are exchanged, there don't seem to be enough pieces to attack the white king, and Black is left down the exchange. Yeah, the exchange sacrifice doesn't work in this case, but I have seen some 9.Bc4 lines where Black can trade queens and still get an equal endgame since the weak pawns can be targeted effectively. It's hard to evaluate if it's sound or not in such a case without studying lines beforehand though. Unfortunately, I only know theory through move 9 currently along with some typical motifs, so I still make a lot of game-ruining mistakes like this one.