Chess Blog

Initiative is derived from initiate, which is to originate or start something. In chess, initiative means the ability to take control of the game. You are said to have the initiative when you force the opponent to follow your lead (passive play) rather than initiate something on his own (active play). In Chess Sacrifice as Chess Tactics, we included the use of chess sacrifice as a tool to gain initiative.

Initiative can be gained in several ways like:

• making an active move that forces the opponent to react only in a certain way, restricting his choice
• creating pressure on opponent’s position that keeps him busy resisting that pressure
• playing with tempo i.e., creating a threat to win something

As initiative gives you advantage in play, your aim should be to gain and retain it. If you find that retreating a piece means loss of time, you can retain initiative by exchanging the piece. On the other hand, when you exchange your active piece with a passive piece of your opponent, you lose initiative.

To gain and retain initiative, you must play actively and making a sacrifice is a chess tactics that often constitutes such play. It is said that all sacrifices come about because of some weakness in your opposition’s position. But the presence of a weakness does not create any disadvantage for the opponent unless you are not only able to recognize it but can also make moves to exploit it to your own advantage and a sacrifice often helps you to seize the initiative immediately.

The illustrative game was played at St. Petersburg in 1909 between Ossip Bernstein and Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.

Ossip Bernstein (1882-1962) was a strong Russian master of his time and became Moscow Champion in 1911. Though a doctorate in law, a successful financial lawyer and a businessman, it seems he was plagued by financial misfortunes. He lost his initial fortune due to Bolshevik Revolution in 1918, which forced him to move to France and settle there. He lost again in the Great Depression of 1930 and the third time in 1940 when Nazi Germany invaded France. He was awarded GM title in 1950. He had a near level record against all the great players of his time excepting Capablanca and Alekhine.

Eugene Znosko-Borovsky (1884-1954) had defeated many of his more famous contemporary masters but could not reach the very top level because of many disruptions in his life. He came to be better known for his chess writings than for his games. He settled in France in 1920 where, besides being a writer on chess, he became a literary and drama critic.

The diagram shows the position after Black’s 22nd move (22. … Qxh4) which was considered risky compared to the alternative 22. … Kh8. When Black played his 23rd move, White immediately identified an opportunity to seize initiative by making a sacrifice! He must have noticed the unguarded Black Rooks, the threat to which formed a part of his attacking plan.

The final position when Black resigned.

You also notice how a sacrifice made for a particular objective often create many other benefits which by themselves would be justification for the sacrifice. If you analyze, you will find that the sacrifice of the KRP and the Knight created all these themes for sacrifices discussed in earlier articles -- diverting a piece, opening up lines of attack, breaking up King’s castle, seizing initiative, attacking the King, threatening mate or capture of pieces, creating passed pawns – all in a cascading effect!

Watch Actual Game

A sacrificial attack that you are unable to take to a successful end (the realization of your aims) becomes a liability. If the opponent can defend successfully and thwart your attack, you are faced with the handicap of not only a deficiency in material but also loss of time and to regroup your pieces may become impossible. Your opponent will exploit your weaknesses to create his own attacks which you will possibly be unable to resist. The outcome is the opposite of what you intended with your sacrifice.

A badly planned or calculated attack is a wrong chess tactics that is always doomed to failure. But a frequent cause of your inability to conclude the attack is the inadequacy of your force at a certain stage to sustain the attacking tempo. So an accumulation of adequate forces is a part of your chess tactics prior to the launch of a sacrificial attack as you were told in Chess Sacrifice as Chess Tactics.

But an adequate accumulation per se is not enough. You must be able to make your sacrifice at the soonest possible opportunity to get the success. In chess, every move counts and if you delay or hesitate, the opponent may be able to guess your intention and a major reason for success of sacrifice, the surprise element, will be lost. Moreover, the delay will enable him to bring in more defenders that may totally refute your attack.

So the elements of a successful chess sacrifice are:

• plan out the combination with your opponent’s possible reactions in mind
• accumulate your forces and position them through tactical maneuvers
• this process itself may involve some secondary sacrifices and that is why you often find that sacrificial attacks involve a series of sacrifices
• while doing so, maintain the surprise element (some sacrifices in the previous step may be diversionary tactics!) by trying to hide your intention, keeping for last the move that may be a giveaway
• while making these preparations, just don’t be so blinded by your own clever plans that you fail to notice what your opponent is doing and its impact on your plans

• as soon as you think that your preparation is ready, initiate your attack with sacrifice

Here we present a game between Herman Pilnik and Miguel Najdorf that was played in a 1942 tournament held at Mar del Plata in Argentina.

Herman Pilnik (1914-1981) was born in Germany but emigrated to Argentina and became an Argentine Champion. He was awarded IM title in 1950 and GM in 1952. He later moved to Venezuela and stayed there till his death.

Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997) was a Polish master of Jewish origin. When he was in Argentina to play a tournament and WWII broke out, he decided not to return home and took Argentine citizenship. That saved him but not his family who perished in Nazi concentration camps. He became a Grandmaster in 1950. He was a profound theorist and contributed to many openings, the most famous being the Najdorf variation to Sicilian Defense which is used widely in master games.

The game illustrates our points on chess sacrifices regarding how the initial preparations are made and a series of sacrifices are planned to deliver the final blow, after which the last few moves towards a win become a formality! The attack is so brilliantly executed that you will feel as if all the moves by White constitute a long tactical combination!

The diagram position occurs after 13 moves, though it is worth going through the whole game for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph as White started his manipulations as early as the 8th move!

The game went as below
(Note: The analytical comments are from one of the books of Fred Reinfeld where this game was a part of the collections.)

At the end of the 18th moves, the position stands as shown.

*”When Spassky offers you a piece, you might as well resign then and there. But when Tal offers you a piece, you would do well to keep playing, because then he might offer you another, and then another, and then … who knows?”