Continuing in our series of posts on the Ruy Lopez, Open, I thought I would go over some of the ideas in the Howell attack, an interesting sideline that involves a queen sacrifice. After the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb4 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7. Ba3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 we have the following position which is extremely common in the Ruy lopez open:
Tag: Mikhail Tal
The open ruy lopez was a career favorite of Viktor Korchnoi, who played it consistently and with success against top flight opposition. The game could not be more different from the closed, maneuvering ruy lopez of the chigorin, breyer or zaitsev variations. In the open, black places his knight centrally and looks for active piece placement to immediately apply pressure on the white camp.
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