Wisdom of the sacrifice

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clane2ndwindow

Mar 5, 2011

Hey all, hoping to get some advice in my game. I'm still a novice player but my goal is to get tournament ready by the end of the year.

In looking over my recent games I see that I use sacrifices early in every game. Their purpose is not a tactical combination that would eventually put me up material but instead I'm using the sacrifice just to steal the momentum and (often) to open or prevent a castle. My last few games I was behind in material all the way to the end (I have been winning thou).

Is this a wise strategy? Will this no longer work once I start playing stronger players?

When evaluating the benefit of a sacrifice I usually count the developed pieces I will have actively "in the game" compared to my opponent. I'll sacrifice a rook if I will still have more developed material for the next 3-4 moves. Good/bad?

yusuf_prasojo

Mar 6, 2011

I looked over a couple of your games. The sacrifices youre making are very unsound and will work at the beginner level youre playing at,

You wont improve if you keep playing this way.

Well, the ability to see the benefit of inisiative/momentum (e.g. in a gambit) is a skill, a positional knowledge. You will learn many things such as the situation where your opponent will "give back" the material advantage for a better position or initiative. You will also learn the skill to find out whether you are superior than your opponent in one skill aspect of the game such as playing the gambit. You probably can't learn these but from actually doing it.

You are expected to make mistakes. Even stronger players than you are make unsound sacrifices. And that's one of the point. Just learn to be better at doing it (there are many that you need to master still).

Later when your rating has raised, say to a master level, you don't have to do this "stupid" strategy again. But you will still benefit from the skill. There will be moments where your only chance to win is by being good in sacrificing material like this.