Dear Chess Friends!

I know that most chess players prefer to capture the material rather than to sacrifice. But sometimes you can’t really exploit your advantage without sacrifice. It’s fine when you are able to calculate the line from the beginning to the very end. But what if the position is too complicated and you can’t? if so, I would recommend you to not sacrifice much material, but you may consider a pawn sacrifice, especially in the games with short time control.

You often sacrifice a pawn to develop your pieces faster and get a temporal advantage. Such a pawn sacrifice can be called a “developing sacrifice”. But how to get a temporal advantage? You can embarrass the opponent by a pawn sacrifice.

You know there 2 types of sacrifices: Dynamic and Positional. On this upcoming webinar I would like to focus on a “Dynamic Sacrifice”, when the position has plenty tactical opportunities, the side who sacrificed, has the initiative, but you can’t calculate the lines to get a clear material advantage.

Would you like to learn how to sacrifice pawn in a dynamic position to get the initiative? Please, watch the video below:

How to recognize that it’s time to sacrifice the pawn for the initiative? Of course, you won’t be able to calculate the line to the very end, but you should understand that after this pawn sacrifice the position becomes sharper and you opponent has to defend it for 7-10 moves. Usually this period (7-10 moves) is enough for the defender to make a mistake so that you can obtain enough advantage to win the game.

According to my experience, on the top level usually such a pawn sacrifice leads to a draw. The other side (with extra pawn) defends properly, but the initiative is enough to get a pawn back and equalize the position. In some cases, you can deliver a perpetual check.

Of course, dynamic pawn sacrifice doesn’t obligatory provide you with a winning position, but can offer good practical chances to win the game.

I illustrated everything by the examples of games played by top grandmasters. In the first game, it was a pawn sacrifice to get a temporal advantage.

Bobby Fischer – Bent Larsen

In the second game Mikhail Tal sacrificed the pawn to open a file (line pawn sacrifice).

Mikhail Tal – Dieter Mohrlok

And, of course, I prepared 2 exercises for you!

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

If you have any questions or ideas, don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected]

Best Regards,

FM Victor Neustroev