Continuing our series of typical sacrifices in the middlegame, we are going to present you in this article the double bishop sacrifice. It starts out as a classical bishop sacrifice on h7 (h2), but giving up the other bishop too on g7 (g2) can prove devastating for the king’s security.

However, it involves good calculation ability and knowledge of a few features of the position that make the sacrifice work. This sacrifice is also known as the Lasker sacrifice, as he is the one who made it famous in the game against Johann Bauer, played in Amsterdam in 1889.

Before moving on to the examples, we have made a list of the characteristics that should draw your attention onto a possible double bishop sacrifice:

• Security of the king. This is the most important factor for any attack, but particularly in this case, the pawns g7 and h7 (g2 and h2) must be vulnerable, meaning that the king should be the only piece defending them;

• Piece coordination. This is, of course, necessary whenever starting an attack against the king. However, when planning to make a double bishop sacrifice, you should make sure that your queen can reach the square h5 (h4) or, generally, the h file, and that one of the rooks can easily reach the kingside. This is the basic idea of this sacrifice – mating the king on the g and h file, using the queen and one of the rooks;