"Was that really worth it???" by GM Magesh and GM Arun

More often than not in our lives, we ask this question to ourselves, “Was it worth it?” We are sure that this question haunts many of our readers too in their games as Chess is just a mini version of life. Personally on several occasions, I have faced this question when I ended up collecting some material in exchange for activity for my opponent. Based on our own evaluation and judgement skills we make a decision at any point during the game, only to regret it later.

Today we will discuss one such opening where white gives up a pawn and puts tremendous pressure on black. For most people, this decision is a simple answer to our first question. If you are a white player and you think it is worth it to give up a pawn and put some pressure on your opponent, you can play this or if you are black and if you do not mind defending carefully against an attack in exchange for some material, then you would allow this.

So here black is facing the famous question we discussed above, “Is the pawn really worth it?” White maintains very good pressure against black in exchange for the pawn. Black can forget about castling on the kingside and also protecting the h7 pawn and defending against the g4 and g5 advance at times could be a real headache for black. His lack of space only adds to the list of problems that he already has. Let us continue with the game today to see the ideas now.

Personally I do not think it would be worth it to take a pawn and defend for the rest of your game, but again it is just my personal opinion. I know several strong players who would be more than happy to get into this position and play the best defensive ideas consistently. We hope our readers got a good insight into this opening.