Since tournament reports have featured heavily in my recent Chess Moves columns with the promise of more to come, I decided that I would go for something completely different this month and revisit a topic that has been one of my favourites over some decades: the exchange sacrifice. Clearly it is not an unmitigated pleasure to recall that it is now nearly a quarter of a century since I began my lengthy series of strategy columns for ChessBase Magazine. Still, I observe with more satisfaction that (back at the turn of the millennium) I lost no time in getting stuck into some fundamental topics. I was enthusiastic to push the idea that the appropriate considerations for deciding whether to trade pieces - concentrating upon the respective functions of the pieces directly involved in the exchange and crucially the impact of their removal upon the pieces which remain on both sides – is also a pretty good basis for assessing the worth of those sacrifices in which a piece is removed from the armies of both sides.
Of these, it is fair to say that the exchange sacrifice (giving up a rook for a minor piece) is probably the most significant. If we focus upon the relative values of pieces based upon the functions they are performing in a particular case, we will get less hung up about their typical values and this should act as a counter-weight to excessive materialism - or so the thinking went. This was shortly after the publication of John Watson’s seminal Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy which claimed – in line with the author’s claim that modern chess increasingly emphasised the concrete over the general – that the prevalence of exchange sacrifices is probably the most significant development in chess strategy since Nimzowitsch and a major contribution to its increasingly dynamic turn. I didn’t need much encouragement to dive into this subject, but I still well remember that John Watson’s infectious enthusiasm did give tremendous impetus to this latent fascination.
I hope that the appeal this subject holds for me is readily understandable. As beginners we find a basic outline of the relative value of the pieces to be an absolutely indispensable tool, but as we improve we benefit from observing that it frequently obscures as much as it reveals. We discover not just that positional factors can compensate for a material deficit, but also (perhaps without necessarily making the distinction explicit) that a piece can simply be stronger than the opponent’s piece of nominally higher value, either because of the specific role it is playing or because it fits so perfectly with the structural features of the position. In other words, the compensation for your excellent exchange sacrifice might be primarily extrinsic to the actual transaction, or it may just be that your beautiful knight is simply better than your opponent’s lousy rook! Compensation is to me a fascinating subject more generally. We learn how time, the initiative, a safer king, more secure pieces or even a tighter pawn structure are all factors which can offer good value in exchange for a material deficit. Yet we also appreciate that there are many types of ‘temporary’ positional advantage – a lead in development being a classic example – which will often need to be transformed into something more enduring, such as extra material. The interplay between material and position is ongoing and dynamic and, to me, vitally important to the enduring fascination of the game.
Some years later – in 2006 – I homed in more specifically on the subject of exchange sacrifices in a pair of strategy columns which touched on issues which – in spite of all the manifest changes in the way players are approaching chess some 18 years later – seem to remain surprisingly pertinent today. I was struck by the apparent explosion in the number of games featuring exchange sacrifices and began to wonder whether exchange sacrifices had ceased to be something exceptional and were becoming somehow almost routine. In support of this thought I had Jonathan Rowson’s seemingly shocking claim in his 2005 work Chess For Zebras that, ‘In my experience most GMs now think of exchange sacrifices as mainstream - no more exciting than exchanging bishop for knight, but this hasn't yet trickled down into other levels of the game’.
It takes a moment to process the strength of this claim and I suspect that part of the intention was to be deliciously provocative. Of course, it would be absurd to claim that giving the exchange no longer requires compensation: but then again, most top players also look for some form of compensation when giving up the bishop pair, even if - as an occasional Trompowsky player - I sometimes have to deploy quite a broad-minded optimism about where I am going to be able to find this. This all brought to my mind the words of Max Euwe when responding to the explosion of exchange sacrifices from a much earlier era (the Soviet Union of the 1950s) in his celebrated middlegame volumes. In the section Relative Worth of the Pieces he opens the chapter on ‘The Exchange’ with the emphatic words ‘The advantage of the exchange is decisive. There can be no two opinions about this, and it is necessary to begin this chapter by stating it definitively.’ Whilst this is essentially correct, I rather had the sense that this was a great authority watching the ground shift beneath his feet, perhaps trying to put his own doubts to rest as much as those of his readers.
The truth, of course, is that, without compensation, the advantage of the exchange does indeed remain decisive. In this regard it is worth noting that examples in which one player wins the exchange and the material advantage is duly exploited will still very heavily outnumber exchange sacrifices. My database searches in preparation for this article unequivocally confirmed this. What has changed, I believe, is our increasing sensitivity to different types of compensation and in this regard the engine continues apace the process of broadening our minds.
If Jonathan was exaggerating then, it is perhaps more surprising that reality has in my view not yet caught up with his claim even now. My impression is that even very strong players still fall victim to strong exchange sacrifices not infrequently by underestimating such powerful ‘exchanges’ of pieces which they would never overlook if the nominal value of the pieces were the same.
The highest profile example of recent times was undoubtedly from the last World Championship match.
Ding, Liren – Nepomniachtchi, Ian
World Championship Game 4, Astana 2023
From the diagram, Ian Nepomniachtchi – already facing considerable pressure for a pawn, surprised the world by playing the serious error 28...Nd4? and suffering an emphatic first defeat after the powerful exchange sacrifice 29.Rxd4! cxd4 30.Nb3 g5 31.Nxd4 Qg6 32.g4! securing the strong-point on f5, whether Black captures or not 32…fxg3 33.fxg3 h5 34.Nf5 Rh7 35.Qe4 Kh8 36.e7 Qf7 37.d6! cxd6 38.Nxd6 Qg8 39.Nxe8 Qxe8 40.Qe6 Kg7 41.Rf1 Rh6 42.Rd1 f5 43.Qe5+ Kf7 44.Qxf5+ Rf6 45.Qh7+ Ke6 46.Qg7 Rg6 47.Qf8 1–0
Of course, one possible interpretation of this would be to suggest that the chess world’s borderline horrified reaction to 28…Nd4? illustrates just how accustomed we as observers have become to exchange sacrifices. Indeed, this one is not hard to explain in terms of ‘function’. Black’s key task is to blockade the two scary centre pawns and he allowed the ‘exchange’ of his best blockading unit. Nonetheless, an audience armed with engines routinely generates outrage. Whilst I was certainly somewhat taken aback by Nepo’s mistake, I would rather pose the question: would Nepo have even considered the move 28…Nd4 if it had been a minor piece due to remove it? I think we can all guess the answer.
With apologies to one of my favourite players (and favourite people) I would suggest that what happened to Luke McShane in the fourth round of the London Chess Classic is another (if milder) version of the same phenomenon.
Bartel, Mateusz - McShane, Luke
13th London Chess Classic 2023 Round 4
I think Black could be very satisfied with the outcome of the opening and the simple 21…fxg3 22 fxg3 Ne5!? with a possible …c5 to come according to circumstance would probably have left Luke quite comfortable. However, he instead permitted the weakening of his structure in order to try and tie up White’s pieces with
21...Ne5 22.gxf4 gxf4 23.Rd1 c5 24.Ne2 Bg4?
It wasn’t entirely too late to switch plans and minimise the damage by trying to contest the centre with 24…f5!?. However, I suspect that the attempt to restrict Bartel’s pieces which the move chosen represents was implicit in Luke’s decision at move 21. Unfortunately, this pin proves to be very far from absolute, especially against a man who had produced an excellent course on exchange sacrifices for the (now sadly defunct) Chess 24 website. Again, however subconsciously, I am sure that the promise of material gain led Black to underestimate both the damage to his pawn structure and the power that the white knight will exhibit in just a couple of moves’ time. I am even more certain that Luke will immediately have understood how serious are the implications of White’s investment.
25.Nxf4! Bxd1 26.Rxd1 Kb8 27.Nd5 Rf8 28.f4 Nc6 29.f5
A shocking transformation. The white knight is somewhat spoilt for choice for great outposts, whilst its black counterpart will, by contrast, find no stable squares. The rest was brief and rather painful.
29…Qg7 30.Nxb6 Qg5 31.Be6 Qxh5 32.Nd7+ Rxd7 33.Bxd7 Ne5 34.Be6 Qg5 35.Kc2 h5 36.d4 Nf3 37.Qf2 Qf4 38.dxc5 h4 39.Rd3 1–0
If a player with Luke’s excellent judgement can fall prey to this danger, it is hardly surprising that additional tactical factors can mess with a player’s expectations still further. I was rather struck by this moment from the World Rapid Championship in December.
Madaminov, Mukhiddin - Ponkratov, Pavel
World Rapid Championship Round 13 – Samarkand 2023
There is no doubt whatsoever that a player of Pavel Ponkratov’s calibre - never mind one with considerable experience in the French Defence - understands completely the necessity of holding together Black’s light-square blockade here. Positionally, the move 23…Nce7 is strongly indicated, when the defence looks solid enough. Still, Ponkratov is neither the first, nor will he be the last, player to make the costly assumption that an innocent ‘gain of tempo’ sought by attacking a powerful piece will necessarily force it to move.
23...Rhg8?? 24.Rxf5!
A fine Zwischenzug, but not a particularly difficult one, neither in terms of the minor calculation required nor in terms of assessing the compensation for the exchange. Black’s position simply falls apart after this. It is even clearer in this case that Black will have realised the disastrous nature of his blunder immediately. My suspicion, though, is that if the move 24 Rxf5 had not itself involved a material sacrifice, it would likely have proved more visible - somewhat paradoxically, given that Black will not have had the slightest doubt that White’s compensation is more than ample.
24…exf5 25.Qh6 Ne7 26.Qd6 f4 27.Nxd5 Nxd5 28.Qxd5 Qb7 29.Qxb7+ Kxb7 30.Bxc4 and White has a crushing advantage, for all that there were to be some hiccups in its conversion.
Of course, I do not have room here to consider all the psychological factors which impact upon exchange sacrifices. I have concentrated so far on a latent, most likely subconscious, materialism which suggests to me that Jonathan Rowson’s description of the commonplace nature of such sacrifices remains somewhat exaggerated. However, I fully acknowledge that I could also quote examples of players over-obsessing about the purity of their positional compensation – especially that involving archetypically elegant minor pieces. Together with a well-developed sense of the danger of greed, this can sometimes lead players to overcompensate and in fact underestimate the importance of a material deficit. The hazards are by no means all one way.
What of the second part of Jonathan’s claim – namely that the prevalence of exchange sacrifices has yet to filter down to players at lower levels? This, I suspect, was largely correct and remains so. It is anecdotal evidence only, but I have showed some of the finest exchange sacrifices I know to my pupils, and they have fully appreciated their artistic quality and probably even been persuaded that they have represented the most efficient route to victory. However – and obviously somewhat frustratingly for a coach – all of these positives have on occasion managed to coexist with such comments as ‘but I don’t think I would play that in my own games’! Part of this is about the all too natural fears to which Mihail Marin alludes in his chapter on Petrosian in his superb book 'Learn from the Legends'. ‘Once the artistic feeling has been satisfied, the practical player starts thinking about the result. Being an exchange down, perhaps one should be happy with a draw.’ I suspect many of us have been there. We know that the compensation should be convincing, but being material down is nonetheless just a little bit scary.
There is an objective reality to attach to this argument as well. Rooks are pieces which tend to have their heyday in the later stages of the game. They are usually the last pieces to develop and the ones which gain the most in strength as the clutter on the board gets cleared. So alongside the nervousness which might accompany having even the best minor piece against a rook is the fact that the latter is likely to improve as the game proceeds. I think this tough reality is related to another psychological phenomenon. Again, I don’t have hard evidence for this, but it accords with both my perception of my own failings and my observations of others’. I think that when sacrificing the exchange we tend to focus too much on the quality of the minor pieces and not enough on the rooks. This may be simply because there is so much more literature and thinking on minor pieces and their respective qualities than there is about rooks – we are, of course, very accustomed to comparing them with each other. It may also be that in justifying the loss of material we naturally focus on the pieces which need to be ‘exceptional’ and perhaps we even have a less well-developed sense of what to expect from a typical rook. Whatever the reason, perhaps the simplest way to improve our assessments of exchange sacrifices is to ask simple questions about the rook. Are there open files? If so, are these likely to lead to entry squares and counterplay, not just as the positions stands now, but after any foreseeable pawn breaks?
By way of illustration, I offer one of the most impressive exchange sacrifices I have seen in recent years, with light notes.
Duda, Jan - Baklan, Olexander
French Team Championship Top 12, Montpellier 2015
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8 6.Bc4 Ke8 7.Nf3 Bd6 8.Be3 a6 9.Bb3 Nc6 10.Nd2 Na5 11.f3 Nd7 12.Nc4 Nxc4 13.Bxc4 c6 14.Kf2 b5 15.Rhd1 Bc5
16.Bxf7+!
I was really stunned by this when I first saw it, and I expect it came as quite a shock to Baklan too. Maybe in the future a similar sacrifice may be described as ‘something Black should have foreseen’ – in line with some of our previous examples – but I don’t think we are there yet. Nonetheless, Stockfish doesn’t take too much convincing.
16… Kxf7 17.Rxd7+ Bxd7 18.Bxc5 Be6 19.Ke3 g5 20.Nd1!
This elegant redeployment of the knight is a good moment to take stock. So, White has a pawn for the exchange but what else? Well, another very significant factor is the opposite-coloured bishops, which means that Black’s weakness on e5 will be easy to attack and relatively awkward to defend. Meanwhile, whilst there is an open d-file, the entry squares are easy to cover – with moves such as Nd3, which have the added virtue of combining attack and defence. More problematic is the fact that the f3-pawn offers Black a ‘hook’ with which to try to open the g-file. Here the entry squares will be tougher to cover. White needs to be sure that he will be far advanced with his own plans. It is important as always not just to admire White’s elegant minor pieces, but to ensure that they are facilitating tangible progress.
20…g4 21.Nf2 gxf3 22.gxf3 Rhg8 23.Bb4
This baffled me a bit at first sight, but the bishop attacks the e5-pawn much more effectively from c3 because a defence with …Kf6 and Rg5 can then be met with f4 – using the pin along the c3-h8 diagonal.
23...Rg2 24.Bc3 Rxh2 25.Nd3?!
The simple 25.Bxe5! Rg2 26.Rh1 Kg8 27.b3 Re8 28.Nd3 would have actually been a cleaner way of keeping Black’s rooks contained.
25...Rg8 26.Nxe5+ Ke8 27.Nxc6 h5 28.Rd1 h4 29.Be5 Rhg2 30.Bf6
Yes, White threatens not only the h4-pawn, but also 31 Ne5, completing an efficient mating net.
30...Kf7 31.Bxh4 Rxc2 32.Rd6! Re8?
33.Rxe6!
Again, the interplay between positional factors and material. For all the activity and initiative which the white pieces have enjoyed, the final transformation of the advantage is about simple material gain. One final thought. The engine’s sympathy with a large number of exchange sacrifices is not about some general sense that we have hitherto underrated minor pieces in comparison with rooks. This can fairly easily be confirmed by observing that the engine also sometimes suggests giving two minor pieces for a rook in positions in which human players have tended to be resistant to that temptation. The only way to make sense of this paradox is to understand the range of types of compensation (both structural and dynamic) to which the engine is drawing our attention. The game remains incredibly rich. Here, though, the two pieces have a very comfortable time converting.
33...Rxe6 24.Nd8+ Kg8 35.Nxe6 Rxb2 36.Nc7 Rxa2 37.e5 Rc2 38.Bd8 Rc3+ 39.Kd4 Rc1 40.e6 Rd1+ 41.Ke5 Rxd8 42.e7 Rc8 43.e8Q+ Rxe8+ 44.Nxe8 a5 45.Nf6+ Kf7 46.Nd5 b4 47.Nb6 b3 48.Na4 Ke7 49.f4 Kd7 50.Kd5 Ke7 51.f5 1–0