Rooks are over-rated!

The Art of the Positional Exchange Sacrifice - Sergey Tiviakov

Tiviakov begins mentioning his last DVD: "Learning from the World Champions," which was well received by the chess community, giving him the idea of creating a series of DVDs on chess strategy.

The topic of this (Exchange sacrifice) DVD: the sacrifice of material for a better position, is a difficult transition point in the life of every player. But it is also quite rewarding, since the games can become exciting. The positional exchange sacrifice can become a powerful tool in a player's hands if used correctly.

Before showing a brilliant game with such a sacrifice, I'd like to show a position from it, and ask you to guess the next move.

This game well illustrates into action the concept of positional sacrifice.

In the DVD Tiviakov shows when such sacrifice is required, what are the principles governing the sacrifice, and how to realize it in our own games!
Sometimes the real problem for the amateur is that the sacrifice is not seen, because one cannot see the benefits right away, and that makes it difficult to imagine it.

Another aspect is also psychology. Many don't realize it, but chess, for humans, is heavily influenced by individual psychology. Like Tiviakov points out there is a definite relationship between our own inner greediness and the way we play chess. Even for World Champions to reject the material offer is difficult.

Tiviakov begins the DVD showing a great example by Nimzowitsch.

While showing different examples of positional sacrifices, he also explains important elements of the game, like the blockade:

Tiviakov while commenting on a game introduces and explains many middlegame elements we must all know and learn. Practically after watching the DVD one will understand better the middlegame and will be able to see in master's games motifs like: centralization, prophylaxis, fight for the center, and many other elements discussed by Tiviakov when explaining the games he shows.

Returning to the position above, as you can see from such example, the Bc8 is also blocked, and cannot develop on d7, at the same time the rook on a8 cannot come out because of the bishop.

From such a position we can already devise a principle related to blockaded positions, or the control of important squares. Such principle would guide us to avoid exchanging pieces, because we sacrificed material, and consequently we need to keep the position closed to keep the activity of the enemy pieces low.

Throughout the DVD Tiviakov reveals important info for the growing player, for example he explains how the former World Champion Tigran Petrosian was a master of the positional sacrifice.

This means that we need to look at his games and discover which one has such a sacrifice. Obviously when a teacher of the caliber of Tiviakov tells me: "Petrosian is the master of a certain technique... or positional principle," I begin to go over Petrosian's games, to find what Tiviakov was speaking about, and here I'd like to share one of the games I found:

Tiviakov did a great job in selecting games from Petrosian which taught how the blockade can give rise to the positional sacrifice. However I disagree on a statement he made on video no.3, about 30 seconds into the video, saying: "likely Gligoric, (a real chess giant in my opinion), learned the positional exchange sacrifice thanks to Petrosian."

This game was played in the chess Olympiad in 1962, and in it we can see how Petrosian saves the day thanks to a positional exchange sacrifice on move 28, leaving en prise the rook on e1, and then blocking the position with Ne4.

Obviously the book Zurich 1953, really taught all possible positional strategic and tactic elements to everyone who really studied it. 

And in such book we saw the famous game Reshevsky vs Petrosian with a beautiful positional sacrifice. This could lead someone to think that Gligoric learned the position exchange sacrifice studying this book.

However, many people just focus on major players like Fischer, Kasparov or Karpov, but Gligoric was really someone to learn from. Watch this game, and the stunning positional sacrifice played in 1951, quite before Zurich 1953, and Varna 1962!

And for those who still have doubts, here another game played by Gligoric in 1952, which also shows the positional sacrifice (centralization of the knight, which support the attack on the kingside, for the Rf1 which is not really helping to finish off the enemy! Notice also how the knight on d4 closes the d-file):

Unfortunately I must admit I also didn't study enough Gligoric, but, it is possible that his inspiration to learn the positional sacrifice was Botvinnik, whose games surely were famous in the Soviet Union, and areas heavily influenced by Russia, like the Yugoslavia in which Gligoric was living.

The following game by Botvinnik shows also positional exchange sacrifice, and clearly shows that each player to reach the Master level needs to be able to play positional exchange sacrifices in his games.

This last game, and others played by Botvinnik in the 1930s and 1940s, could have been what taught Gligoric such an important chess idea. In fact one of the main concepts of another good DVD made by ChessBase: "Learn from the Classics," is based upon the importance of studying the games of the masters of the past, in order to learn middlegame ideas and patterns we will use in our games, and Gligoric is a clear example of how to learn from Botvinnik!

After this long parenthesis upon who taught the positional exchange sacrifice to Gligoric, let's return to finish the review of this DVD!
The DVD is made by 26 videos, 24 if we count off the introduction, and conclusion, in which different games are used as example, some coming from Tiviakov's practice too!

Then there are 10 test positions, which use the interactive FritzTrainer system, practically Tiviakov shows a game or a position, and ask us to find the correct moves in order to win. Then when we give the wrong answer, we often receive a video clip with the feedback of why that move wasn't good.

The DVD comes with a database of the games used in the videos, they are 35. Then another database of games based on the exercises, which are 10. And finally a database of extra games: 50 in total. For Petrosian lovers, Tiviakov has put at least 20 of Petrosian's games in the Extra Games database, which shows the big influence Petrosian had over Tiviakov, and the good influence it could have upon us, if we study those games.

In conclusion: someone can think books are better, but it is not true. Here we have a passionate teacher, giving us all the wisdom he can, and giving us also material for training, and studying. I don't think one can have a better deal if he wants to learn this part of the middlegame, and apply it in his own games.

About the Author

Davide Nastasio is a novel chess aficionado, who has made of chess his spiritual tool of improvement, and self-discovery. One of his favorite quotes is from the great Paul Keres: "Nobody is born a master. The way to mastery leads to the desired goal only after long years of learning, of struggle, of rejoicing, and of disappointment..." He is one of the main writers for ChessCafe on Chessbase products, he authors articles on British Chess Magazine, and he is one of the main contributors of Georgia Chess Magazine in the new electronic format: Georgia Chess News. He is an active player, and organizes and directs chess tournaments.

More reviews by Davide:

Mining the pastures of ChessBase 14

Black Lion - an agressive version of the Philidor

Review: The Dutch Stonewall