This ambitious move is playable but rarely seen. Black normally responds with 3...Ne5. Then after 4.e4 (inviting 4...Nxe4?? 5.Qd4 winning a knight), Black struck back in the center with 4...Ng6 5.f4 e5 in the seminal game Sämisch-Torre, Moscow 1925. However, Orlov considers both Torre's fourth and fifth moves inferior. He and Palliser both recommend instead 4...e6, after which play can become extremely sharp. For example, Elburg-Simmelink, correspondence

Correspondence chess

Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...

 1999 continued 5.f4 Ng6 6.Bd3 exd5 7.e5?! Ne4 8.cxd5 Qh4+ 9.g3 Bb4+! 10.Bd2? (Better is 10.Nc3! Nxc3! 11.bxc3 Bxc3+ 12.Bd2 Bxd2+ 13.Qxd2 Qe7 14.Nf3 d6 15.Bb5+! Kf8 16.Qc3 with some practical chances for the sacrificed pawn

Pawn (chess)

The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...

). Nxg3 11.Nf3 (see diagram at left) Nxf4! 12.Bf1! (12.Nxh4?? Nxd3#

Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

!; 12.Bxb4? Nxd3+ 13.Qxd3 Qxb4+ is hopeless for White. Bxd2+ 13.Nbxd2 (see diagram at right; 13.Qxd2? Nxf1+ 14.Nxh4 Nxd2 is winning for Black.) Qh3! 14.Rg1 (White cannot take either of Black's two hanging pieces: 14.Bxh3 Nd3#; 14.hxg3 Qxg3#. Nor is 14.Ng5 Qg2! any better.) Nxf1 left Black with two extra pawns.