The Greek Gift: A Chess Sacrifice on Fire
We will look at an important checkmate pattern called the Greek Gift, sometimes referred to as “the Classic Bishop Sacrifice”. This tactic is the most dominant attacking theme against short castling in chess.
This “Greek Gift” consists of the sacrifice of the bishop for the h-pawn to destroy the opponent’s castling. Usually, the defending side has no choice but to accept this gift. Although, regardless of whether the sacrifice is accepted or not, the side that won the pawn is left with an advantage in the position. And in many other cases, this leads to a forced victory.