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Pawn Sacrifice (Obstruction)
Pawn Sac

Pawn Sacrifice (Obstruction)

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KingKev52
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                          Pawn Sacrifice

   Pawn sacrifices can take your game to another level but why would you just sac a pawn? Here is a list of themes:

1 King attack                                     2 Development

3 Opening lines                                4 Deflecting

5 Pawn levers                                  6 Obstruction

7 Prevent castling                           8 gain the 2 Bishops

9 vacating a square                       10 energise your pieces.

11 Endings                                     12 Confusion

Sacrificing for the King attack is obvious and development sacs well known in many gambits. The confusion sac is just plain desperate so the sac I will look at in this blog is the obstruction sac. This is simple to learn as it is played in the opening and usually occurs on e6 (e3) depending on colours.

Obstruction Sac

This pawn sac is used to block your opponents play making it difficult for him to co-ordinate his pieces. Lets look at a classic example from the game Hector v Madsen

From an Alekhine defence opening we see the Knight is already blocking the Queen and Bishop and other Knight can't develop there. The point of the sacrifice is that it prevents Black playing e6-e7 to enter a French defence. The capture will double the e pawns and the e7 pawn cant advance quickly so blocks Black's position.

A good sacrifice? 

Game Continues

White develops smoothly whilst black needs time to co-ordinate his pieces and in the end plays a counter sacrifice (c pawn) to relieve his position being put under pressure from White pieces. White has already got his pawn back and still has pressure
   Without Counter Sacrifice
Lets see what can happen without the counter sacrifice to see how difficult the blocked position is for Black.
This is from game Spielmann v Landau and we see after the Rook move Black can't castle Kindside and Queenside will take time as his development is a mess!!!!!!!!!!!
This type of sac is easy to implement into you play - GOOD LUCK
Recommended authors
J Spielmann
T Taylor