It was not always so, and still is not so at club level, where in my experience players tend to fall into one of two categories:
1. Those for whom sacrificing the exchange rarely crosses their mind as they are loath to give up material without seeing a way to regain it.
2. Those who sacrifice the exchange inappropriately when all else seems to have failed.
In round nine of the Northumbria Challengers (U2000) - I had the white pieces against Cameron Davis (1488 ECF) - I won a pawn when my opponent played a faulty combination in the following position:
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| Black to make his 23rd move |
*****
*****
*****
*****
23...a4?
White is only slightly better after 23...Bb5, according to Stockfish14 and Komodo12.1.1.
24.Bxa4 Be2 25.Rd4
Play continued ...
25...Bc4 26.b3
... reaching the following position:
 |
| Black to make his 26th move |
*****
*****
*****
*****
26...Rxa4??
The engines give 26...Bb5 27.Kf2, when Komodo12.1.1 reckons White has the upper hand, but Stockfish14 gives White only a slight edge.
One thing that should ring alarm bells while considering playing ...Rxa4 is that the resulting position is an ending.
In the vast majority of cases, the sacrifice of the exchange is a middlegame weapon - it rarely works when most pieces are off the board.
The reason is that a well-placed or particularly active minor piece can be the equal of a rook, or even its superior, on a crowded board in the middlegame when rooks have few or no open files or ranks to work on.
But in an ending a rook is nearly always the better piece, and by quite a margin, and so it proves in this game.
27.bxa4 Bxa2
Black has won back a pawn for the exchange, but his position is hopeless.
28.Rb4 Bc4 29.Kf2 Rc7 30.Ke3 h5 31.Kd4 Bf1 32.g3 Kf8 33.Kc3 Ke7 34.Rb6 Kd7 35.Kb4
Pushing the a pawn also wins, but preparing to put the king on c5 is a simple way to a decision.
35...Be2 36.Ra5 Bd1 37.c3 c5+
This is no worse than any other try.
38.Rxc5 Rxc5 39.Kxc5 Bxa4
The game finished:
40.Rb7+ Ke8 41.Kd6 Kf8 42.Rb8+ Kg7 43.Ke7 g5 44.Rf8 gxf4 45.Rxf7+ Kg6 46.gxf4 h4 47.Kxe6 h3 48.Rf5 1-0
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