Exchange sacrifice

In his book Rethinking the Chess Pieces, GM Andrew Soltis gives the following guidelines to know when an exchange sacrifice works:

• when it changes the impact of the minor pieces (e.g., taking a bishop to enhance the power of your own bishop of that color);
• when rooks can't act like rooks (i.e., blocked files);
• when there are many minor pieces left;
• when it destroys the opponent's pawn structure;
• when you thus get the bishop pair.

The following example is taken from Ridli-Volokitin, 2004, and can be found in Volokitin's excellent Perfect Your Chess, which will be discussed in another article, along with Soltis' book mentioned above. The following position arose after 15. axb3 Ra2:

White responded with 16. Ba1, when Black threw the excellent positional sacrifice 16. ... Rxa1! 17. Rxa1 Bxd4

This not only technically loses the actual value of only one pawn, but mostly, it prepares to shatter White's pawn structure and completely block in White's other bishop. The rook being attacked, White had to move it, giving Black the opportunity to take on e3, which was the key to the whole combination.

18. Ra8?! Volokitin suggests Ra3, to protect the b3 pawn; 18. ... Bxe3! 19. fxe3 Qxd1 20. Rxd1 Nxb3.



White's hemmed-in bishop proved to be a problem, and Black went on to win the game.