FoxyChess › Tactics › Sacrifice
Sacrifice
Give up material on purpose to get something bigger back: a mating attack, a winning tactic or a decisive position.
How to spot it
Give up material on purpose when the position afterwards is worth more: a king in the open, a mating net, a pawn about to queen. Sacrifices are forcing when they come with check, so start by looking at every check, however expensive.
A worked example
Philidor's legacy. 1.Nf7+ Kg8 2.Nh6+ Kh8 (2…Kf8 3.Qf7#) 3.Qg8+!! Rxg8 4.Nf7#. The queen is given away to force the rook onto g8, and the knight delivers a smothered mate.
Why it works
Material is only a way of measuring who should win. A sacrifice trades material for something that wins faster: time, open lines, a king that has run out of defenders. The best ones are forced, so there is nothing to calculate but the mate.
How to defend against it
A sacrifice is a bet. If you can't see why the material is being offered, look for the follow-up before accepting; declining is often the calmer choice. And keep your king's defenders near it so that sacrifices don't work in the first place.
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