Disclaimer 1: The following article contains several affiliate links to Amazon.com, meaning that if you go to Amazon and buy the recommended product (or some other product in an allotted period of time), the author of these lines will get a commission % from the purchase

Disclaimer 2: The following article is an excerpt from my article titled Best Chess Books 2022 in which I reviewed 20 chess books

Ivan Sokolov: Sacrifice and Initative: Seize the Moment to Get the Advantage

Continuing with the theme of studying attacking and dynamic play, somewhere in the second half of 2022, at the recommendation of my coach, I also grabbed a copy of the book Sacrifice and Initiative by a well-known former player and another renowned author and coach, GM Ivan Sokolov. ¹

As the title suggests, the book deals with the topics of Sacrifice and Initiative in chess and is divided into two parts. The initial 7 chapters are devoted to the latter, ² while the subsequent 9 chapters deals with the former:

Just like the chapters in the Attacking Manual, every chapter of Sacrifice and Initiative consists of a series of annotated and analyzed games devoted to a certain topic. The selection of the games is again the book’s strong suit, as they very vividly illustrate the concept of the chapter, apart from being quite exciting and interesting. Especially in the first half, Sokolov has done an extremely good job of breaking down such a complex concept such as the initiative into smaller chunks and illustrating them with well-selected games. In that regard, the book was definitely an eye-opener in many ways.

I also think the book did a good job of mentioning important principles at various places – most notably at the beginning of each chapter, but also throughout the games themselves. I especially liked how every chapter was concluded with a small „Tips” window, summarizing the lessons and important principles that have been demonstrated throughout the chapter:

On the other hand, if we disregard the explanation of various principles related to attacking play and handling the initiative, I felt the games themselves left a lot to be desired in terms of their presentation. In contrast to the Attacking Manual which is full of text at every corner, Sacrifice and Initiative is much more lacking in that regard.

First of all, in quite a few places – especially in the subvariations – there are streams of analysis with trees of variations and without a single explanation. Even in the main text of certain games, the author assigns annotation symbols (?, !) to certain moves without explaining why they are so good (or so bad).

Furthermore, even at places where there is textual commentary, the book is full of generic and common chess phrases such as „with compensation”, „This is a blunder”, and „Was the only move” that fail to dig deeper and answer the eternal question bothering club chess players worldwide – WHY.

Mind you, this problem – which was labeled as „Grandmasteritis” in certain circles within the chess community³ – is not at all new, unique, or restricted to this particular book. ⁴ Yet, it is nevertheless very frustrating to read a book on very complex topics such as Initiative and Sacrifice ⁵ and constantly ask yourself questions about certain continuations that might have seemed obvious to the author, but that definitely doesn’t seem obvious to yours truly.

Another thing that bothered me somewhat in regard to this book is its overlay/editing. In contrast to the majority of other New In Chess titles, here it is definitely not up to the task, with diagrams being way too small and too few, with text having breaks from one page to another, and with new games starting at the very end of a certain page, and so on.

Thus, for me, Sacrifice and Initiative can be regarded as a diamond in the rough. The topic is extremely interesting and insufficiently covered in the chess literature and the material selection is excellent, which makes it a good choice for higher-rated players who don’t mind doing a lot of work on their own. However, due to the book’s issues and the fact the topic is quite complex, I wouldn’t recommend it to a wider chess audience.

1. Whose most recent coaching success includes leading the Uzbek national team to the gold medal at the 2022 Chess Olympiad in Chennai
2. A topic that can’t often be found in the chess literature
3. Hi Geert
4. On the other hand, the existence of Grandmasteritis makes it easier for books that don’t adhere to it, such as How To Play Equal Positions mentioned earlier, to stand out
5. One could make an argument it is even more important to have more text and explanations when you are dealing with complex topics such as Initiative and Sacrifice