Sacrifice, Deflection and Decoy: giving up material to win the game

A sacrifice gives up material on purpose because something else is worth more: time, an open line, the enemy king. Material is a means, not the goal. The game is won by whoever delivers mate, and a bishop down counts for nothing if the other king falls three moves later. The question is not what you lose, it is what you get back.

The real sacrifice and the sham sacrifice

Mixing these two up costs games. A sham sacrifice is not really a sacrifice: it is a forced sequence where you hand over material and get all of it back, with interest, a few moves later. You are not gambling, you are counting. Every reply is forced, and at the end you are ahead or you are mating.

A real sacrifice is something else. The compensation does not come back on its own: initiative, open files, a king without cover, permanent weak squares. Assessing it is judgement, not arithmetic. It is the soul of attacking chess, and the fastest way to lose when judgement is off.

Deflection: pulling the defender off its job

Pieces defend things: a mating square, another piece, a whole rank. Deflection forces the defender to abandon that job, usually by attacking it with something it has to capture. It leaves its post by law, not by choice.

The rook on e1 gets nowhere alone: 1.Rxe8+ Rxe8 and the rank is still guarded. The answer is 1.Qxe8+. Queen for rook looks absurd until you count Black's legal replies and find exactly one: 1...Rxe8 2.Rxe8#. The a8 rook was the spare defender, and on e8 nothing defends it.

Decoy: luring a piece to the wrong square

Decoy is the mirror image. Instead of dragging a piece away, you pull it onto a square where it gets in the way, where it can be hit with check, or where it blocks its own king.

The pawns on g7 and h7 are Black's own and block two exits. Only g8 is open. 1.Qg8+ shuts it: the king cannot capture, because the knight covers g8, so 1...Rxg8 is the only legal move on the board. The rook has just closed the last door on its own king, and 2.Nf7# is the smothered mate.

Clearance: getting out of your own way

Clearance is the least obvious reason to give up material: the piece goes because it stands in front of your own pieces. A knight on e5 can be the only thing between your rook on e1 and the black king on e8, and any knight move that gains time opens the file, even if the knight is lost. The cleanest case is in the next section: the knight leaves f3 with check and the queen inherits the diagonal to h5.

The Greek gift: Bxh7+

The best known attacking sacrifice has its own name: the Greek gift. The bishop gives itself up on h7 to drag the king off g8, the knight lands on g5 with check, and the queen swings to h5. It is a pattern, not a line to memorise, and it depends on specific conditions.

• A bishop aiming at h7 down the b1-h7 diagonal. Here on e4, though d3 is more usual.
• A knight on f3 ready to jump to g5 with check.
• A queen that reaches h5 in one move, along the diagonal the knight vacates.
• The black king on g8 with the pawn still on h7.
• No black knight on f6: it would defend h7 and attack h5 at the same time.
• Nothing of Black's covering g5. A bishop on e7 or the queen on d8 takes the knight.
• The black rook still on f8, plugging the king's escape square.

With all of that in place: 13.Bxh7+ Kxh7 14.Ng5+. Declining with 13...Kh8 hands over a pawn for nothing. The main line is 14...Kg8 15.Qh5, and now Qh7 is mate: f7 and g7 hold black pawns, f8 holds the black rook, h8 is covered by the queen, and the knight defends h7. Apart from two checks that change nothing (below), only a rook move off f8 defends. Then 15...Rfe8 16.Qxf7+ Kh8 17.Qh5+ Kg8 18.Qh7+ Kf8 19.Qh8+ Ke7 20.Qxg7+, every black reply forced, leaves three pawns for the bishop and a bare king.

The king has three other squares. 14...Kh8 loses at once to 15.Qh5+ Kg8 16.Qh7#. After 14...Kg6, 15.h4 threatens h5+, and Kxg5 is not even legal: the c1 bishop covers g5 through the empty d2, e3 and f4. After 14...Kh6 that same bishop decides it, since 15.Nxe6+ is a discovered check that also attacks the queen on c7. Calculate these, do not assume them.

The checklist before you sacrifice

1. Is it forced? Count your opponent's legal replies at every move. If there are three reasonable alternatives at any point, you are not calculating, you are hoping.
2. Do you reach the end? A line is calculated only when it ends in mate, in material you can count, or in a position you can evaluate with conviction.
3. What do you get? Say it out loud: mate in three, rook for bishop, or his king stripped bare with three pieces arriving. If none of that comes out, do not do it.
4. What if he declines? Evaluate the position after the refusal before you commit. Quite often declining is worse for the opponent than accepting.

Sacrifices are not memorised, they are recognised. The shapes are few: deflection, decoy, clearance, and the sacrifices against the castled king. See the same shape twenty times and the move arrives before the calculation.