Sacking the Citadel: The History, Theory and Practice of the Classic Bishop Sacrifice

Four hundred years ago, an Italian chess master, Gioachino Greco, discovered an
extraordinary bishop sacrifice on h7 that often leads to checkmate or a
significant material advantage. More amazing still, he recorded the idea!

This book chronicles the history of that idea, what many have come to
call the Classic Bishop sacrifice, from its discovery and formative
years through its remarkably complex uses in modern chess.

During the past century, several annotators have attempted to explain
the circumstances under which the sacrifice works, and when it doesnt.
Edwards reviews their efforts and, in a spectacular ninth chapter,
provides a modern classification. His taxonomy of the sacrifice is
comprehensive and full of pleasant surprises for beginners and even accomplished
masters.

This book represents a thematic approach to chess tactics and strategy.
Careful readers will suddenly discover that they are able, quickly and
accurately, to see 5-10 moves or more ahead in these lines.

Here you will find hundreds of carefully annotated games. Learn from
brilliant moves and strategies; and take full advantage of others
instructive mistakes.

Jon Edwards won the 10th United States Correspondence Championship in
1997 and the 8th North American Invitational Correspondence Chess
Championship in 1999. He became a Senior International Master (SIM) in
1999. His ICCF rating of 2580 placed him in the top 200 correspondence
chess players worldwide.
Jon is an accomplished chess teacher and author. His book, The Chess
Analyst (1999) chronicled his success in the US championship. His
photographically based chess primer, Teach Yourself Visually: Chess
(2006), is helping many thousands of young learners.