Martinovsky Memorial and parting with the lady .
Dear ICB Editor ,
I received this great material from NM Glenn Gratz this morning . Glenn won the " Parting with the Lady " Queen sacrifice prize at the US Masters . Colley , this should find a prominent spot in your next issue of the Illinois Chess Bulletin ! I ' m especially pleased that an Illinois player won this prize and thanks again to Jerry Hanken for his generosity ! Best ,
Helen
Martinovsky Memorial and parting with the lady .
By Glen Gratz
As I sat down to play round 1 in the Martinovsky memorial , I overheard the organizers say that a prize was being offered for the best game submitted with a queen sacrifice combination . They mentioned that in a previous tournament that the same prize had been offered before and no one had submitted a game with a queen sacrifice . Obviously , on the master level queen sacrifices are seldom seen . I decided that if a queen sacrifice was a good possibility without too many risks that was what I would try .
I remembered my first game against Dr . Martinovsky in the 1989 US Open in Chicago , not for a queen sacrifice but for a queen sacrifice that I could have tried . Unfortunately at the time I did not see the queen sacrifice nor did Dr . Martinovsky . Here are the moves of that game up to that point .
1 . c4 e5 , 2 . Nc3 c5 , 3 . g3 Nc6 , 4 . Bg2 d6 , 5 . e3 Be7 , 6 . Nge2 Bg4 , 7 . f3 Be6 , 8 . b3 Nf6 , 9 . 0-0 Qd7 , 10 . e4 Bh3 , 11 . d3 B : g2 , 12 . K : g2 h5 , 13 . h4 0-0- 0,14 . a3 Nh7 , 15 . Rh1 g5 , 16 . hg N : g5 , 17 . Nd5 Rdg8 , 18 . Ne3 h4 , 19 . g4 h3 +, 20 . Kf2 h2 , 21 . Nf5 Rh3 , 22 . Kg2 Rdh8 , 23 . B : g5 B : g5 , 24 . b4 Nd4 , 25 . Ne : d4 cd4 , 26 . c5 d5 , 27 . Nd6 + Kb8 , 28 . ed Bf4 , 29 . Nf5 Q : d5 , 30 . Qe2 f6 , 31 . a4 . 1 / 2-1 / 2
At this point Dr . Martinovsky had only 15 minutes left on his clock to play to move 50 and I had just under an hour . He offered me a draw in this unclear position because of the complications and
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Illinois Chess Bulletin
Letters
his limited time . I accepted the draw more out of respect for his rating and playing strength . In that US Open I had to catch the last train to Harvard and leave by midnight to do so , therefore that may have weighed on my decision to accept the draw .
Dr . Martinovsky graciously analyzed the game afterwards with me . My local hometown area master Kevin Gensler , who had the same childhood training as me with expert Dr . Vern Willert , was there analyzing the game with us . He pointed out that in the final position where Dr . Martinovsky offered me a draw I could have moved my queen to win pawns . If the doctor moves a rook to guard the pawns I could sacrifice my queen for a rook and he would be in a mating net . Kevin pointed out that if I play 31 ... Qb3 I can harass his pawns . If he plays 32 . b5 then 32 ... Qc3 harasses the c pawn and it threatens 33 ... Qc3 : a1 then after 34 . R : a1 , I play h2-h1 ( Q +) , 35 . R : h1 R : h1 my other rook threatens to go to h2 checkmate . If he plays32 . Rb1 after 31 ... Qb3 I simply capture the rook so therefore I can win pawns on the queen side because of the queen sacrifice concept .
After that first game with Dr . Martinovsky , I played him 5 more times . I have probably played him more rated games than any other USCF player in my career . My next 3 games were losses and my last 2 wins . I always enjoyed playing him win or lose . My style of play and his style of play made the games very interesting with only 1 draw .
Then in this tournament as a memorial to a wonderful chess player and person I had the opportunity to sacrifice my queen in 2 different games . In the first game the queen sacrifice was more a defensive necessity than a decisive combination .
I won the game and submitted it in case there were no other entries . But the second game involved a much sounder queen sacrifice .
White Gratz Black IM Justin Sarkar . 1 . e4 c5 . 2 . Nf3 Nc6 , 3 . Bb5 d6 , 4 . 0-0 Bg4 , 5 . h3 Bh5 , 6 . Re1 e5 , 7 . c3 Nge7 , 8 . g4 Bg6 , 9 . d4 Qb6 10 . Na3 0-0-0 . ( I am not sure about opening theory here but I believe black has gone wrong . Castling queenside looks very dangerous and his pieces are not very well coordinated .) 11 d5 Nb8 ,