Initiative in Chess: How to Use it Effectively?

In one of our recent videos by the RCA guest coach IM Mat Kolosowski, we saw a beautiful queen sacrifice by Rashid Nezhmetdinov, a Soviet chess master. One can learn a lot of ideas from this game:

1. Ignoring opponents threats
2. Bringing ALL the pieces to the attack
3. Sacrifices
4. A king in the center
5. Last but not least, intuition

And more broadly speaking, what made that very unique sacrifice work was the INITIATIVE, or ability to create threats, that Black had.

But even though the initiative can lead to some of the nicest games ever played, when not exploited accurately it can lead to losing positions where the other side cashes in the material advantage. How to correctly exploit the initiative?

We’re happy to inform you that our next course will be about this topic! The course will be launched on Monday, 16 August, and the author is someone new. Feel free to shoot your guesses in the comments.

P.S. Here’s the 2^nd part of the video series by IM Mat, this time from a former world champion – watch the queen sacrifice by Garry Kasparov.