It is overkill. I won't deny it. <RookFile> has never missed an opportunity to escalate things, even after I suggested that we both try to tone things down a little bit. And when he escalated, I admit that I responded in kind. At this point he is arguing out of spite rather than logic, though. I'm not even sure that he himself believes that Capablanca had a wholly modern understanding of the positional exchange sacrifice ... he has vacillated on this point <many> times already. He's just out to contradict me and to make me look stupid any way he can. It no longer even concerns him to examine the matter objectively; that's why he focuses on side topics like the semantics of "pawn and move odds" rather than the main issue we have been debating all along.

I would like to apologize to the frequenters of this thread for carrying on far too long on a point which most people probably recognize as self-evident. I also apologize to <RookFile> if I have offended him; we both have escalated things, we have both carried a negative tone too much of the time, and this is not conducive to a pleasant environment, which is what this site should be about. Chess is a game, after all.

There is no reason why it shouldn't be possible to have friendly disagreements.

Regarding the main point of this argument, I feel that I could not have made the case any more plain. It appears that what I thought was a disagreement with <paladin> was merely a misunderstanding. <RookFile> has indicated that he still disagrees with my main point, but I'm willing to let that go.

<RookFile>, I realize that I can't persuade everybody on everything, no matter how obvious something seems to me. You are entitled to your opinions.

I offer not a "draw," but a truce.

(I could imagine poor Euwe thinking "Is this man trying to prove the Monticelli trap is playable, or is he just amusing himself at my expense?")

There have been discussions if the idea of the exchange sacrifice was well understood in the 1930s. Of course it was. So were such stuff as pawn sacrifices for the initiative and piece activity. Any perusal of the games of Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, and the rest of the chess masters of this era shows that they understood what they were doing when they were making these types of sacs. Perhaps they didn't word it too clearly, but they clearly knew what they were doing.

This very line has been played for Black by such Grandmasters such as Kortchnoi, Andersson, Larsen, Azmaiparashvili, Seirawan, Christiansen and others ... including Postny, used it in his game at Aeroflot just last year against Aronian!>

Game 8 also has detailed annotations from "Tijdschrift KNSB 1931", in A. Munninghoff's, "Max Euwe, The Biography". These notes include comments from Capablanca on moves 35, (<35.Rd4 would have been stronger>), and on move 37, <37...Nh3 would have thrown up similar problems for White as the text move>.

A Black win in this line from 2012 though it took a carefully played Rook ending to clinch it. (an ending I botched up in typical me fashion.)