When A Pawn Stays In Your Way

In one of his games at the 1958 Chess Olympiad in Munich, GM Mikhail "the Magician" Tal, true to his style, sacrificed a pawn. His team member, then world champion GM Mikhail Botvinnik, asked him, "why did you sacrifice that pawn?" "It was in my way!" was Tal's instant response. Here is the game:

Surprisingly, it is quite common for a beautiful central pawn to stand in the way of your own pieces. By sacrificing such a pawn, you can suddenly release the hidden power of the rest of your army. One of the first such examples that I learned as a kid is the following famous game. It is mostly well known for the exquisite combination executed by Wilhelm Steinitz:

I remember that while the combination is indeed quite complicated, I was still able to calculate it on my own when our coach offered us to find the best continuation. Meanwhile, another moment of the game was way more instructive and impressed me even more.

I looked at all kinds of moves in that position, but the idea to sacrifice a pawn just to open the c-file, and what was even more important, to clear the d4-square for the knight, was absolutely foreign to me at that point. Since that episode, I have always called this idea the "Steinitz's sacrifice." It happens quite frequently in chess, mostly in openings. Here is how 12-year-old future world champion GM Boris Spassky executed this idea:

Just like in the classical "Steinitz's sacrifice," for the price of a pawn, White got an open e-file and the beautiful d4-square for his knight. However, sometimes you sacrifice your central pawn for other benefits. Look at the following position. GM David Bronstein annotates it this way: "The d4-pawn blocks the diagonal for their own bishop, so Black's position looks quite solid. But let's see what happened in the game."

In some cases, to get rid of your own pawn that stays in your way, you need to get rid of an opponent's pawn that stays in the way of your pawn.

Now, when you are familiar with this powerful pattern, try to find a winning combination missed by GM Sam Sevian in the recently concluded 2026 The American Cup.

In the actual game, White overlooked this golden opportunity, and the game ended in a draw:

Next time, when you play your game and notice that your own pawn takes away a key square from one of your pieces or blocks an important file, remember what Tal did with his pawn and get rid of it without hesitation!