Morra Gambit in practice

The Morra gambit (from the player from my hometown Nice,France Pierre Morra who studied and played it) is still a dangerous weapon against the Sicilian.

Classic 1:1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 e6 6.Bc4 d6 7. Qe2 a6 8. O-O Be7 9. Rd1 Qc7 10. Bf4 Ne5? 11. Bxe5 dxe5 12. Rac1!Qb8

White to play and seize the initiative !

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Classic2:1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6.Bc4 e6 7. Bf4 a6 8. O-O Nf6 9. Qe2 Be7 10. Rfd1 Qc7 11. Rac1 O-O 12. Bb3 Rd8

White to play for the initiative (Position 2)

Eventually, the position above evolved in the following :

Position 3: White to play and win

( Matulovic-Panatopoulos 1965)

How to attack against the Sicilian Defense : follow the GMs !

White to play and win in the three positions below.

All positions come from the sicilian opening with Black ( specifically Sicilian Kan/Taimanov), and White is playing the attack quite well ( strong GM each time !)


1-Spassky-Capelan



2-Nunn-Gheorgiu



3-Anand-Polgar

Note:
The reader interested in the solutions can replay the entire games (and additional thematic sicilian games, featuring wins from the black side too) through this link:

http://theory.top10chess.com/template.html

This link is using a new reader developed by Paolo Casachi (Pgn4Web).