Thursday 14 February 2019

Here, take this.

Valentina Gunina scored a nice attacking win over Marie Sebag in the currently running Cairns Cup. It was a fairly typical Sicilian King side attack v Queen side attack game, where the attack on the King side crashed through first.
The key moment was when Gunina left a knight sitting unprotected on b5,offering it to Sebag's queen. This kind of offer is what the late Patrick Connell referred to 'sucker bait'. And in this case it was. Sebag grabbed to knight, and after that, Gunina's attack was unstoppable.
Obviously the temptation to grab material is a strong one, but offers like this usually come with strings attached. Indeed, at this level, such offers should be doubly suspicious, as you don't get here by giving stuff away for free.


Gunina,V (2501) - Sebag,M (2476) [B90]
1st Cairns Cup 2019 Saint Louis USA (5), 10.02.2019


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