Sacrifices

From when someone starts playing chess, and starts chess class, he/she is always told not to ignore the rules of chess.  And while rules such as 'don't bring your queen put too early', 'develop your pieces' and 'castle early' are pretty important, one of the most important rules is: 'Never trade a piece with a higher rank for a piece with a lower rank'. What I mean is never trade a queen for a rook, or a rook for a pawn, but you know what I mean. 

However, sacrifices somehow defy that rule. Lets see how.

First of all, what are sacrifices?

Sacrifices (in chess) are when a player gives material to the opponent on purpose, to get something that isn't material in return, at least at that very move.

Here is what the player who sacrifices may get if the sacrifice is done correctly:

•  Material
• positional advantage
• a good attack
• lead in development
• other

Lets see an example of a sacrifice.

In the above position, white sacrifices his queen to mate black's king. Black's under-developed pieces are unable to help as their king gets swiftly checkmated in 2 moves by white.

Lets see another example:

In this position, white sacrifices material, only to get it back in the next move with a fork.

Although sacrifices go against a rule in chess, they don't hesitate to blend in and go hand in hand with different chess tactics.

Sacrifices get along very well with discovered attacks. 

To see what I mean, look at this:

Uh oh! the black king is a move away from getting to white's bishop! Don't worry, as white uses the perfect pair consisting of a discovered attack and a temporary sacrifice to capture black's queen and almost certainly win the game.

Gambits

If you play chess, you probably know what gambits are. A gambit is when you sacrifice a small amount of material (such as a pawn) to get an advantage in development or possibly a good attack. It can also be used to defend from an otherwise deadly attack.

Examples of gambits:

The king's gambit is shown in the above position. It is a  very risky gambit for white, in which white sacrifices (or gambits) the f pawn to get a lead in development and sometimes a good attack. This gambit is rarely used by players as it can be devastating for white if black breaks through white's defenses.

The queen's Gambit is shown above. It is the mirror image of the king's gambit, and its much more common than the king's gambit, as it is way less risky.

There are many many more gambits in chess, and new ones are slowly being made as the years pass and chess games become more diverse.

Now that we know what sacrifices are and what they give us, it is time to look at some games with awesome and utterly bizarre sacrifices.

#1 

Alekhine vs Vasic: In the above game, world champion Alexander Alekhine absolutely crushes Vasic with a Boden's mate

#2

Edward Lasker vs George Alan Thomas: Lasker mates Thomas with an amazing discovered checkmate! Mate with a king!!

#3 (FINAL GAME, AND THE MOST EXTREME ONE)

AWESOME GAME!

Adolf Anderssen vs Lionel Kieseritzky: In this game, White sacrifices all its pieces! for more info on this game click here.

So, whether you think that your queen sacrifices are just cool moves, or excellent masterpieces, sacrifices make the game fresh, spicy, and a lot more fun!