Chess: How to continue the attack?

Salov- Huschenbeth, Khanty-Mansiysk 2010. White to play. Following our choice of Jacob Aagaard's Attacking Manual 2 as book of the year , we're pursuing the theme with a look at some attacks from the recent Olympiad. RB The position arose from a Sicilian and, racking my memory, I vaguely recall that there are sometimes sacrifices on e6 and b5 in similar set-ups. So I looked, first, at 1 Ndxb5 (or 1 Ncxb5), but after 1...axb5 2 Nxb5 Qc6, Black has a knight for two pawns and White still has no attack. I then looked at 1 Nxe6, but again after 1...Bxe6 2 Bxe6 (what else?) fxe6 Black was, once more, ahead on material and under no threat. 1 Nf5 doesn't do anything either, apart from lose a piece for even less material, and 1 a4 is answered by 1...b4. The pawn on e4 is obviously a target, but 1 e5 doesn't seem to help. After 1...dxe5 2 fxe5 Qxe5 White has... let's see – maybe 3 Bf4. But then what? Last week I felt very smug when I spotted the correct continuation almost at once. This week it's back to the slough of despond. DK Rather typically for the Sicilian, the position has become very sharp very early. Half-measures won't do for White, so I think Ronan is right to look for sacrifices, and he is also right in thinking that the obvious ones don't work. But there is some good news: Black's king is still in the middle, and that would encourage me to be bold. I'm drawn to 1 e5 dxe5 2 fxe5 Qxe5 and this is the critical position. 3 Bf4 is met by 3...Qh5 and the queen is safe. Instead, White found a brilliant and shocking idea: 3 Nf5. If 3...exf5 4 Bf4 traps the queen in the middle of the board – very unusual. The game reeled on: 3...Nxb3 4 Nxg7+ Kf8 5 Bh6. Black might still be all right, but under pressure he went wrong and lost. [email protected]