Positional Sacrifice

Positional Sacrifice is a very special kind of sacrifice in chess. The concept of sacrificing is
quite common in chess. Players are usually happy to give up material in order to regain it
with interest a few moves later.

There are sacrifices that lead to winning material, immediate mate, or mating attacks. In the
latter category, we could include the Greek Gift sacrifice, the Double Bishop sacrifice, the
sacrifice on f7, etc, but also many other tactics that are meant to open the opponent’s king
wide open and then hunt it down.

Except for the intuitive sacrifices that give great initiative and a strong attack, sacrifices can
usually be calculated almost until the end. That means, you know exactly what you get in
return; it is something “tangible”.

However, sacrifices don’t always lead to

- a wild game
- don’t always have a clear outcome.

There is another category of sacrifices, which involves deeper ideas, the positional sacrifice.
As the name suggests, this type of sacrifice can’t be easily calculated and you won’t be able
to predict its outcome – you won’t get your material back (at least not immediately) and you
won’t immediately mate your opponent.

This is a sacrifice that is usually employed by strong players with the purpose of obtaining a
long, steady positional pressure. In this case, you might not even get the sacrificed material
back and you’ll probably play with a material imbalance for a long time. Sometimes taking
the risk pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t and the players who execute it don’t win the game,
but one thing is certain – they get to have control and put big practical problems to their
opponents for most of the game.

Table of contents

 How to sacrifice material?

 Positional sacrifice to destroy the opponent’s king shelter
 Sacrificing material for the initiative
 Sacrificing material to free a square for your pieces
 Positional sacrifice for defensive purposes
 Sacrificing material for a long-term edge
 Want to include Positional Sacrifice in your preparation?

How to sacrifice material?

One of the most famous positional sacrifices is the exchange sacrifice and here the player
who immediately comes to mind is former World Champion Tigran Petrosian. He was a great
fan of this sacrifice and employed it in many of his games, with different purposes. In one of
his books, he dedicates a whole chapter to this element of chess.

A question that probably comes to mind by now is – but, if the outcome is not clear and I’m
not going to get my material back, how do I even know whether I should sacrifice material or
not? There is no rule you can follow here, sometimes the pressure will be more obvious than
others. In some positions, you can recognize a positional/attacking pattern that makes you go
for the sacrifice, but there will also be positions where you don’t need to do it; it’s purely by
choice.

A player must trust his instinct in order to give up material without any guaranteed reward.
The game will go on and it’s better not to be counting the value of the pieces outside the
board.

The positional sacrifice can be executed for either attacking or defending purposes. Also,
there may be certain motifs or ideas that could make you think about it during a game. Let’s
make a shortlist and review some of the most common ideas of positional sacrifices in
practice.

Positional sacrifice to destroy the opponent’s king shelter

Destroying the opponent’s castle is a big achievement in any position, but even more when
your pieces are active and ready to attack. In such situations, the material can be just a small
price to pay.

Let’s take the following position:

It is clear that white is the one who’s pressing, looking for an attack on the kingside. His
pieces are well placed and ready to get into action, but black seems to have managed to put
the breaks on white’s attack. It’s not clear how white can increase the pressure without
sacrificing material. On the other hand, if white doesn’t act fast, black will simply bring more
pieces around his king and start looking for counterplay on the queenside. For example, a
move like …Ne5 could follow next, with ideas of b5-c4.

This means that white can’t lose momentum; how should he proceed?

In the game, Smyslov found the best move and only way through: 24.Nf5! Obviously, this
piece’s sacrifice can’t be calculated until the end and is only meant to open the black king.

As Smyslov himself put it: “Typical piece sacrifice in such type of positions. But the idea of
this sacrifice, in this case, is not to regain the piece immediately but to increase the attack by
exerting pressure. Here, one should not calculate variations but play according to the
general principle evaluation of a position.”

Black has to accept the sacrifice and now white can use the g file for his rooks. The game
ended with a beautiful king hunt:

Sacrificing material for the initiative

The initiative is a very important concept which basically means that you are in control of the
game, creating threats and being active, while your opponent usually needs to stay passive
and defend against them. The following game involves one of the most spectacular positional
sacrifices I’ve ever seen:
White has been putting pressure on black’s position for a while now, but can’t seem to be
able to breakthrough. Black has only one weakness (b7), which he has defended very well.
White also has the bishop pair, but with the closed center, they’re not very powerful. Granda
finds an amazing idea to keep pressing and force his opponent to find some very precise
defensive moves: 39.Rxb7!!

White sacrifices a rook for only 2 pawns, but the resulting position is very complicated, as he
will get a very dangerous passed pawn. Black couldn’t find the best moves and ended up
losing the game:
Sacrificing material to free a square for your pieces

A pawn is a small price to pay in return for a favorable position where the opponent’s pieces
will be disrupted, while yours will get good activity. In the following game Garry Kasparov
shows a typical motif where, by sacrificing a pawn, he cuts the activity of his opponent’s
pieces and improves his:

Garry Kasparov is another player who loved to sacrifice in return for long-term pressure. He
loved to play with the initiative and he was very good in the attack. Here he finds a way of
cutting down white’s light-squared bishop and opening his on g7: 15…e4! After white takes
is, the point is to advance f4 and establish a blockade on e5. See how he went on to win the
game:
Positional sacrifice for defensive purposes

You cannot always make a sacrifice with attacking ideas in mind. Sometimes a sacrifice can
ease the pressure on your own position, remove a key piece in the opponent’s attack, or even
set up some sort of fortress. One very famous example in this sense is from Petrosian’s game
against Reshevsky:

Petrosian was under a lot of pressure in this game. His opponent has the bishop pair and a
beautiful center that will soon advance. Here he finds an amazing defensive resource: 25…
Re6! The idea is to remove white’s dangerous light-squared bishop, but also fix his pawns on
dark squares after the capture on e6. In the end, he managed to salvage the game and made a
draw:

Sacrificing material for a long-term edge

Sacrificing for a long-term positional advantage (eg bishop pair, better pawn structure, etc).

This is perhaps one of the most common ideas when employing positional sacrifice. A broken
pawn structure, big weaknesses, badly placed pieces, playing with the bishop pair are all
long-term advantages that players look for in a game, sometimes even at the cost of the
material. There are many good examples of this idea, but in honor of Tigran Petrosian, let’s
wrap it up with the following position:
The idea played by Petrosian here is very well-known nowadays: 25…Rxe4! Black sacrifices
and exchange for a pawn, but in return will get the bishop pair and a better pawn structure.
White’s light squares will be weak after the disappearance of the bishop on g2 and so will be
his king. Petrosian went on to win a beautiful game:

The Positional Pawn Sacrifice

Sacrifices are usually known as the main tactical mean of getting an immediate advantage.
The concept is clear – you momentarily sacrifice material in order to get bigger gains or
deliver mate a few moves later. Except for the intuitive sacrifices that usually give great
initiative and a strong attack, sacrifices can usually be calculated almost until the end. That
means, you know exactly what you get in return; it is something “tangible”. However,
sacrifices are not always used for tactical means, but also for positional purposes.

In the case of a positional sacrifice, the result is no longer “tangible” – you can assess that it
will give you back some long term pressure and perhaps some weaknesses to play against,
but you cannot actually calculate everything until the end. In this case, you might not even
get the sacrificed material back and you’ll probably play with a material imbalance for a long
time.

You will, however, get something in return and that is the initiative. Petrosian, for example,
was a big fan of these ideas and he used the positional exchange sacrifice in order to get the
upper hand in many of his games. Sometimes he managed to win them, sometimes not. But
one thing is certain – he got to be in the driver’s seat in most of the cases.

A pawn is a small price to pay in return for a favorable position where the opponent will have
to defend all the time. There are many situations when this positional resource can be used
and the compensation you get in return could come in many forms.

For example:

 A better
pawn structure. By sacrificing a pawn, the opponent’s structure can be
compromised and this could give you clear targets of attack in the future;
 Betterpieces. A pawn sacrifice can be used to block the center, a file or a diagonal,
hence restricting the opponent’s pieces. The idea, in this case, is that he won’t be
able to easily untie himself by advancing or even giving back the extra pawn;
 Stablecentral squares. One strong idea behind a positional pawn sacrifice is to get
good squares for your pieces. The square that was occupied by the pawn will now
be available for your own pieces and the opponent won’t be able to easily chase
them away.

To illustrate better these ideas, let’s take a look at following recent game played between GM
Aleksandra Goryachkina and women’s World Champion Wenjun Ju in the FIDE Grand Prix:
As usual, white keeps a small plus in this type of position. White could continue in a normal
way, with a move like 19.Ne5, for example, but there is another strong idea available here.

Goryachkina continued with 19.d5! sacrificing this pawn in order to be able to build more
pressure on black’s position. The idea is to answer black’s capture 19…exd5 with 20.e5! with
long-term compensation. The first thing to notice is that after the arrival of the black pawn on
d5 black’s light-squared bishop is no longer a strong, active piece.

Secondly, white gets a nice square to maneuver her pieces around – the d4 square. This can
later be used by the knight or even the rook, as it happened in the game.

Besides all this, the black knight can’t really find its place on the board anymore – it has no
good central outposts and it has to go to a worse position. After 20…Nh5 white continued
with 21.Rd4 and the rook is now headed to the kingside:
Moreover, the immediate threat is 22.g4, winning the knight, so black had to weaken some
more by playing 21…g6, which allows additional ideas of e5-e6 in the future. Black is, of
course, not lost, but she has to defend precisely, which is never pleasant during a game.

See how Aleksandra continued to increase the pressure on black’s position and eventually
won the game.