There cannot be sound sacrifices without speedy development and proper positioning of the minor pieces (at least) and your own king being secure- so this is the first thing to care about. You can leave "marked improvements" for later.
Sacrificing to Win
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Thank You for the input IM pfren. Why does the development of the pieces of have to be speedy for sacking of pieces to work? And is sacking pieces nothing more than traps because they rely on your opponent making a mistake?
A trap should catch your opponent, not yourself (if the opponent reacts properly to it).
Sacking pieces is done either to win more material, or to mate the king. And this cannot be done with speculative moves: your pieces do have to be positioned properly BEFORE sacrificing. Developing speedily just improves your chances to find your opponent unprepared/undeveloped.
Any one have some good example of sacrificing pieces to win games. Recently I have just started experimenting with this with marked improvement. I usually end up sacking a piece near the end of the open transitioning into the middle game, or out of the middle game and use the sack of the piece to start a mating net. If anyone has some good advice, or games to check out let me know.