Sacrifice — what it means in chess
Giving up material for attack, initiative, or position.
Giving up material for attack, initiative, or position.
A sacrifice gives up material for something worth more — mate, a decisive attack, a winning endgame, or compensation measured in squares and time rather than points. It is the move that separates chess from accounting: material is the most reliable currency in the game, and a sacrifice is the deliberate claim that this position runs on a different one.
The purest form ends the currency debate entirely, because checkmate outranks everything.
[[board startfen="2r3k1/5ppp/8/8/4Q3/8/8/4R1K1 w - - 0 1" pgn="1. Qe8+ Rxe8 2. Rxe8 " caption="The full queen given for mate — the one prize above material." notes="White to move. The Black king is sealed behind its own pawns, and White's heavy pieces own the e-file. Qe8+ — the strongest piece on the board gives itself away. The rook must take: the king has no flight square. Rxe8 — Black is now up a full queen, for exactly one move. Rxe8 — the rook recaptures with checkmate. The material ledger reads minus nine; the game reads over."]]
Sacrifices divide into two families: the forcing kind that ends in a calculated combination, like the board above, and the positional kind — material given for long-term pressure with nothing forced at all. The Greek gift sits between them: a sacrifice made on pattern, backed by a checklist rather than a full calculation.
The Endgame Society glossary defines more than 240 chess terms — rules, notation, tactics, strategy, pawn structures, endgames, and openings — in language a beginner can act on rather than dictionary shorthand.