Sacking the Citadel

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.

About the author

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. 

He is the only Princeton graduate ever to win a national chess championship. 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.

Jon is webmaster of Chess is Fun, a popular web site that provides free instruction. He is also editor of the Chesstamp Review.

For more than 25 years, Jon has taught chess to young and old in the Princeton, NJ area.  He serves as Coordinator of Institutional Communication and Outreach within Princeton Universitys Office of Information Technology.