Materialism is so ingrained that often the possibility of an exchange sacrifice is not even considered.
I am fairly sure that is what happened in round six, when I was White against Reinhard Döserich (1734).
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| The critical position arose after I played 23.Bc3-b4 |
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I vaguely considered Black might play 23...c5?!, but I thought Black's real choice lay in deciding whether to move the king's rook to g8 or h8.
My opponent surely felt the same, as he fairly quickly played 23...Rg8, but resigned shortly afterwards.
However, for Stockfish18 and Dragon1, the real choice is whether to sacrifice the exchange with 23...e5!? or 23...f5!?
They marginally prefer the former, and after 24.Bxf8 (Dragon1 prefers 24.Qh3!?, at least for a while, and both engines also strongly consider 24.Re2!?) Qxf8 Black has interesting compensation.
In my game notes I gave a line with 25.Bc2, but another possibility is 25.Re2.
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| Position after 25.Re2 |
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Black can pick up the a5 pawn at will, but there is no rush for that, and possibly best is 25...Qb4 26.Bc2, and now 26...Qxa5, after which, for the exchange, Black has a pawn, and opposite-colour bishops, in a position in which Black's king looks the safer.
A plausible continuation runs 27.Qe3 f5 28.Qd2!? Qxd2 29.Rexd2 e4 30.h3.
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| King safety is no longer a major factor, and Black still only has knight and pawn for rook, but it may be that Black's pawn-majority is the more dangerous |
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The engines prefer White in the final diagram, but award White the better part of equality, rather than an 'official' slight edge.
LESSON: I can recommend Ari Ziegler's 2011 ChessBase DVD The Art Of The Exchange Sacrifice as a good place for inspiration (although it did not work for me in this particular game!), but there are doubtless many other good resources for learning how to sacrifice the exchange.
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