lThe sacrifice is one of the most beautiful, rewarding and complex aspects of chess. During a game the decision to give up material in order to get an advantage is probably the most difficult one a player has to take. Often, you have to burn your bridges without being able to fully calculate the consequences. Risks and rewards are racing through your mind, fighting for precedence while the clock keeps ticking. Now is the moment, because after the next move the window for this opportunity may be closed. In this book Ivan Sokolov presents a set of practical tools that will help you to master the art of sacrifice. By concentrating on the aim you are trying to achieve, rather than on the opening you are playing or the piece you might be going to sack, he teaches you how to come to a reasonable risk assessment and how to trust your intuition. There is a separate part on seizing the initiative without actually giving up material. Ivan Sokolov has written an entertaining and instructive guide, packed with useful advice and lots of practical examples.
Ivan Sololov may be the strongest active player writing books on middle game theory, and the quality shows. He writes and analyses with great enthusiasm and expertise and the attentive reader will not just be entertained by the great games, he'll be educated as well.
The structure is well thought out and makes the material easier to digest. The book shines in Sokolov's constant attempts to explain rules and principles (in particular the attacking ratio, which dominates most examples)coupled with stories about particular games or concepts.
Sokolov does an extremely remarkable job. His explanations are always convincing and instructive.
One of the book's strongest chapters deals with ignoring our opponents' threats by creating counter-threats of our own. Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess is a thought-provoking and mature study of great importance.
