God Save the Queen!

There are perhaps few moves more respected or prized in chess than the brilliance of a queen sacrifice that leads to a forced mate. Logically, the contra-positive of that statement is that there is no greater blunder in the game of philosophers and kings than the needless loss of a queen. Last night, while out at matchless for some innocuous play with the usual crowd, Jeff and I were put into an uncomfortable position, when someone wanted a high stakes money game. Jeff opened with e4, and quickly found himself with promising attacks, that forced his opponent into a blunder, hanging a knight on the edge(h5). Rather than immediately swiping his prize, Jeff looked ahead to tactical possibilities of attacks against the king. With his opponent’s king’s bishop in the center, Jeff decided to swipe the g7 pawn??? A sparkling queen sacrifice?- no. simply the worst move in chess—in a money game no less.
After Jeff resigned and stepped out for a smoke, I took to the table and equalized the score to 1-1 with a Sicilian defense that this high roller didn’t know how to handle. He toppled his king after about twenty moves when he was forced into going a minor piece down and opening a line to his king.
He wouldn’t win another game that night.
Of the king toppling that followed, by far the most pyrotechnic was the final game in which I had the white pieces. After four moves into the king’s gambit, I recognized that my opponent had left himself open to the classic bishop sac trap. I excused myself from the table to go get Jeff, who was, as per usual, outside smoking, so that he could learn a little about the game. Two moves later my opponent toppled his king, and having won four out of five games (the last one in seven moves), Jeff and I collected our debt. I felt like singing “we are the champions” by that band….wait, who sang that? Oh right, Queen, just like the piece Jeff threw away to an old man in a money game.