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Chess

Great sacrifices

26 October 2019

9:00 AM

26 October 2019

9:00 AM

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.

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