Sacrificing

When I was eight years old, I am a premium member on chess.com and decided that I need to explore master games. So, I clicked into 'Learn.' There, I found out many master games that sacrifice materials, so I began to try that out on my games. But the sad thing is that I started sacrificing pieces out of nowhere without any reason. So could anyone tell me the best way to figure out if it's time to sacrifice? 

Learn patterns and how to calculate. Studying tactics that include sacrifices will help with learning the patterns where a sacrifice might be latent in a position. Calculation takes practice.

Thanks! So I guess I needed to calculate if I need to sacrifice.

I calculate. If you see an advantage then go for it. Of course I sometimes miss calculate my opponents defensive resource and blunder the game. It's all part of the learning experience. I think the harder sacrifices to judge are positional when you might get two pawns for a minor piece, or exchange a rook for a minor piece for a better position or weakening your opponent. Also sacrificing for counter play. I'm still uncomfortable with this but I'll have a go if I think there is an opportunity. Sometimes works sometimes doesn't, I normally learn something along the way.

Thank you. Here is a surprise that you guys might like:

If you have any suggestions about this puzzle, then please put it down in the comments here:

Oh, and you may want to see my profile and please follow me if you want!

https://www.chess.com/member/dennis9989

After 27... Nxh2 Kxh2 it's mate in 5 - so refusing the sacrifice was correct play for white (although white is heavily losing anyway).

In the main continuation, Kg2 is a blunder, as there's a forced mate in 7 (I hadn't calculated that in play, of course (it's mostly by blocking checks with free pieces)... but it was clearly winning). Starting with sacrificing a bishop and knight! But the compensation was removing defenders, and cracking open the kingside pawn structure, allowing my queen free reign.

It takes time. It's probably hard to spot good tactics on your own at the first try. But try again. If you fail, try again.

I kept failing my random sacrifices years ago but the moment I succeeded one day with the same tactic, I realised that the efforts I had put in was not useless at all. I eventually gained confidence over that debut of my successful sacrifice and things became rosier in the months to follow.

This included the smothered mate where I was elated at my first success of launching it against an opponent.

But for someone who starts out sacrificing stuff, he/she probably does not have the confidence to calculate the entire line.

Before I started sacrificing my queen for the first few times, I had the "NO WAY! I am not going to give up my queen for two rooks, even if I could possibly net another bishop!" kind of mentality because I had felt that queens were stronger than other pieces.

Once a person succeeds several times, he will be able to gain confidence and will eventually develop calculation skills to look deeper into the sharpness of a potential tactic.