A sacrifice gives up material on purpose to get something bigger in return: checkmate, more material a few moves later, or lines opened to the enemy king. In a puzzle the payoff is always concrete, which makes these positions a good place to learn the difference between a sacrifice that works and one that only looks brave. Every puzzle on this page contains a sacrifice, comes from a real game and is matched to your puzzle rating.
Most sacrifices fall into three groups. A mating sacrifice gives up a piece, often the queen, because the reply leads to checkmate. A material sacrifice gives up something to win more straight back, for example by forcing a piece onto a square where it can be forked. And a line-opening sacrifice removes the pawns or pieces sheltering the king, so that your queen and rooks can reach it.
What they share is force. A sacrifice works when the opponent has few replies, usually because it is a check or a capture that has to be answered. The fewer choices the opponent has, the easier the line is to calculate, and the easier it is to be sure the sacrifice is sound.
White: king g1, queen h5, rook e3, bishop c4, pawns a2, b2, c2, f5, g2, h2. Black: king h8, queen a5, rook f8, pawns a7, b7, c7, g7, h7. White to move.
White plays 1.Qxh7+, giving up the queen for a pawn. Black's only legal reply is 1...Kxh7, and then 2.Rh3 is checkmate. The rook checks along the h-file. The king cannot go to g8, which the bishop on c4 covers, or to g6, which the pawn on f5 covers; h6 and h8 are on the rook's file, g7 holds its own pawn, and no black piece can step in between. The sacrifice worked because it dragged the king onto a square where a single rook move mated it.
Notice the order of thought. The mate on the h-file came first; the sacrifice was only the way to bring the king to it. That is how most winning sacrifices are found: picture the final position, then look for the forcing move that gets you there.
Before you give up material, name what you get back, and check that you get it against every reply, not just the natural one. Go through your opponent's checks, captures and king moves one by one. If a single defence leaves you a piece down with no follow-up, the sacrifice is a gamble, not a solution.
The classic bishop sacrifice on h7, often called the Greek gift, shows why. It tends to work when a knight can follow with a check on g5, the queen can join on the h-file, and the defender has no knight on f6 to cover h7. Take away one of those conditions and a strong-looking attack can come up a piece short.
The first is sacrificing on a hunch and hoping the rest will appear. The second is calculating only the reply you expect: the defence that breaks a sacrifice is often a counter-check or a quiet move that covers the key square. The third is stopping too early. A line that ends with your attack still going but no mate or material in sight is not yet a solution. In the trainer a wrong move counts the puzzle as a miss, so finish the line before you move.
Say the full line to yourself before touching a piece: my sacrifice, each reasonable reply, and what I win after each. After each of your moves the opponent's reply is played on the board, so you can check your calculation as you go, and the full solution appears beside the board once you solve the puzzle. If you are stuck, the hint shows which piece to move first, then the move.
Many sacrifices are really decoys, which pull a piece onto a bad square, or deflections, which pull a defender away. Mating sacrifices are at the heart of mate in 2 and mate in 3 puzzles, and many end in a back rank mate.
For mixed tactics at your level, use Puzzle Training. For speed, try Puzzle Storm, and to repeat a fixed set until the patterns are automatic, the Woodpecker Method. Elo Maxing rates you on every tactical motif and serves the weakest next, and Pattern Drill builds practice from the patterns your own games show you miss. For a thinking process that decides between a sacrifice and a quiet move, read how to find the best move in chess.
Giving up material on purpose to gain something bigger in return, such as checkmate, more material later, or an open attack on the king.
A sacrifice is deliberate and gets its value back by force. A blunder loses material with nothing in return.
A bishop sacrifice on h7 (or h2 when Black plays it) that pulls the king forward so that a knight check and the queen can attack it. It works only when those follow-ups are available.
Calculate every reply, especially checks and captures, and make sure each one ends in mate or a clear material gain for you.
Yes. Each puzzle comes from a real game and is matched to your puzzle rating, which moves after every attempt.