Chess masters- how they think about material

Ok, ill start by saying I really suck at chess, Im right around 1200, so I am not a great player at all.

When I look at a game played by a grandmaster or even a master it seems they do things more haphazardly almost. For example I sometimes see a grandmaster trying to get a central advantage by moving a pawn out. Then I think in my head, wait, cant the opponent take the pawn? I wonder what they could be thinking? And then the other player doesnt take it. Or sometimes a player has the opportunity of getting up in material like for example has an opportunity to get up the exchange and doesnt do it.

I guess this is just me trying to figure out how to play more modern and advanced chess. But how do the players decide these things? Like for example if they try to chip away at their opponent's center they wont use their pieces to attack it, theyll just sac a pawn and go down in material or something. I want to know how they think about this and how to play chess without being completely concerned over material. I feel there are a lot of players around my rating level (myself included) who will take anything their opponent gives them and will always play the most materialistic move. Is this bad?

The other thought I have is if i learn to play like this and not so materialistic then I will not have success because i am not a gm and i am not good enough to win when trailing in material. Tell me your thoughts and be THOROUGH.

It's tough to judge. It's also speculative sometimes; it's a leap of faith. But if it gives great chances of an attack or initiative, then it's worth it. The hardest part, I would say, is judging the end position.

In master games I quite often see a player leave a piece en prise and his opponent doesn't take it. There must be deeper issues going on...

I know, I agree. I wonder why and when material matters less than position

If the games are annotated well, then it is usually explained, though. Often, if a "hanging piece" isn't taken, the reason simply is that this would lead to the loss of more material or even mate. We have something similar sometimes in the "daily puzzle". People write "Silly puzzle, Black could have just taken the knight!" but if Black had, he would have been mated earlier. To be sure, there are positional sacrifices in master games, but it's usually just a pawn or at the most the exchange for more active play. A whole piece is only sacrificed if it promises a successful attack on the king.

If long counts as thorough, then the following is thorough

Well, I"LL start by saying I'm not close to master even :) (But I will do rudimentary positional sacs) Also EVERYONE (below master at least) scratches their heads when playing over a sharp GM game, asking "why the hell didn't they do _____"

Not sure how to organize it (am really tired) so I'll just make a few points.

1. The relative point count (knight is three, pawn is one, queen in 9 etc) is just that... it is relative.  The pieces are ranked literally in terms of mobility.  I think of mobility as the likelihood the piece will be able to preform a useful function.  But of course!  If a piece can influence more squares, and get to those squares in fewer moves, you'd have to say that piece is much more valuable!

The point here is that in the course of a game, some pieces end up influencing very important squares (such as around the enemy king, or perhaps protecting your king).  In these cases the relativity of the point system is easiest to see.  For example you may be familiar with spectacular queen sacrifices to give mate in short order.  The defender the queen sacrificed herself for was obviously worth more in that position than the queen herself.  The pieces giving checkmate?  Also worth more than the queen.

Fairly obvious stuff, but what's that mean about masters?  Well (and this is important) because of their knowledge and ability they judge what each piece is worth in each new position, it's not a style of play.  (If they're anything like me, it's an almost intuitive relative worth, not a literal number value).  For example a rook in a corner, who will take 5 moves to get into the action may be worth close to nothing if the position is open and heavy blows are being threatened every move.  So this is a case where a strong player will never trade his powerhouse knight for a worthless rook.

So what about when they don't take material at all?  Or it's a center pawn!  Well as you may have already guessed:

2.  there are more types of advantages than just material.  Take for example the initiative.  The initiative means you're able to make threats your opponent must defend.  If you can keep the initiative then by definition you can't lose... the worst outcome you'll have to force a draw by repetition.

In practical cases a strong player will even sacrifice material to take an initiative, their experience telling them that in the future they'll be able to cash this initiative in to more than make up for the invested material.  Again this isn't a style of play, but only comes with experience.  The strong player literally feels like they're taking an advantage by giving up that pawn much the way a beginner feels when they grab a pawn for free!  :)

Other advantages include space.  You may only have 3 pieces attacking vs his 5 total pieces, but if the space is such that his pieces can't coordinate (or even get to the area of action) then your 3 pieces will be more than enough to either win back the material or deliver mate.  (Pieces are non-pawns in chess lingo)

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It's not bad as long as you realize that 1. there are more types of advantages than just counting the pieces and 2. the relative point count is indeed relative.

Good example btw, a knight outposted on the 5th rank may be worth as much as a rook.  Outposted on the 6th, maybe even more.

And I don't mean you need to be finding these deep moves, I mean just simply have these ideas in the back of your head as you play.  As you gain experiance and knowledge you'll see more opportunities for yourself. 

In the meantime, if an unguarded piece looks free after considering it carefully then you should always take it!  If you don't because you're afraid it will look bad then 1. You'll miss out on a lot of obvious and correct wins (masters will always take free pieces) and 2. If you're wrong and it wasn't free, you'll never know why unless you say to your opponent "prove it" by grabbing the free chessman.

This is an excellent question - unfortunately the answer is not always so easy.

Good players consider "compensation" in terms of squares, files, and initiative

and more in addition to material. Part of it comes from an understanding of

how to put most pressure on the opponent. In some games in which Kasparov

sacrificed his queen - the only clear defense was for the opponent to return

the queen a few moves later. 

    if you get strong enough in tactics you become able to open up

new targets and understand the burden that puts on the opponent.

I have to confess that doesn't quite sound right

In any case, just remember there's no mystery.  If you offer a GM a free pawn they'll take it every time.  When they don't take it, it's because they believe they can get even more with a different move.

Read a book like Chernov's 'Logical Chess', or some other collection of heavily annotated games.

This fellow has all the answers you seek...

Old game, from 1991.

Also heres another example of players with material, this time in the endgame with a pawn.

Rublevsky (white) vs Kasparov (black), 2004 European club cup. In the endgame Kasparov randomly sacrificed a pawn (35. g5) why?

Heres another rublevsky game (as you can see Im a pretty big fan of this guy cuz he pretty much plays my favorite Scotch opening)

Rublevsky vs Svidler - Frankfurt Ordix 2000

Svidler seemed to have absolutely no problem with being down the exchange.....

The rook is trapped, nothing special there.

Notice that white successfully conducts a mating attack on black... for a grandmaster this is not a hard choice (take the rook, or win the game).

This illustrates what I was telling you about the relative value of the pieces in the long post.  The rook, who cannot help defend the king, is not worth taking the time to capture.

It may be amazing to you that white knew his attack was worth more than a rook from that position.  What may be even more amazing to you though is that white didn't need to calculate all the different forcing lines to realize this.  In fact, not taking the rook on that move was likely a main line he considered many moves before that position came up.  White intuitively knew that his queen and knight would be able to out preform the lone (and poorly placed) defender.

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Doubled pawns aren't worth much more than a single pawn... Kasparov hardly loses material here.  What he gains though is the weakening of black's kingside pawns (again doubled pawns aren't worth much more than a pawn) and now his rook can target the white pawns more easily.

(This is what I'm seeing anyway)

For your general knowledge though, in rook endgames the order of importance goes  #1 rook activity --  #2 king activity -- and last is material.  In the endgame all it takes is a queening pawn to win, and so maneuvers, sacrifices, and deciding not to take material are based on successfully escorting a single pawn.  If a useless pawn is given up in the process then it's certainly worth it.

Also FYI rook endgames often feature sacrificing pawns to maintain rook activity.  Think of it this way, if you leave your rook passive, you've lost as much as 5 points of material instead of just one!

All values being average is a fact that can't be mentioned too often. According to GM Larry Kaufman, the knight's (average) value would be 3.25 too, though, while the queen's (average) value would be 9.75. That can make a big difference in the evaluation of trades. E.g. two pieces would be (on average) worth slightly more than a rook&pawn and the exchange (even with a knight) would be slightly less than two pawns. Btw Kaufman also says that the bishop pair is worth about half a pawn, so if you trade a rook against two pieces&pawn, you may have an even trade if it gives you the bishop pair.

I looked at that game. Kasparov sac's the pawn to double white pawns therby rendering them easier to contain. White actually should have declined the sac with h5 (according to Houdini) ... but bottomline, that's a good example of GM level "technical" chess. It's hard to understand, because it's hard to understand! Rublevsky is very strong (he wins the game after all) but if Houdini is to be believed, he (very very slightly) misplayed it there.  Kasparov 'blunders' the ending later on, but to my eyes and to most amateur players I'd imagine, his 'blunder' is a far from obvious endgame inaccuracy: 52...Rg1?! (Better was 52...Rc1 or 52...Kf5). Rublevsky jumps on it and it's soon lights out for the great Garry.