The Exchange Sacrifice

Petrosian's exchange sacrifice against Reshevsky at the 1953 Zurich Candidates tournament is probably the single most reproduced example of the idea in chess teaching, precisely because there is no tactical point to it at all. Facing a slightly passive position and the prospect of Reshevsky expanding on the kingside, Petrosian manoeuvred a rook to e6 where it could simply be captured by White's bishop, offering the exchange for nothing more concrete than better minor pieces and control of the light squares around his own king.

Reshevsky obliged with 27.Bxe6, and for the next several moves the game looks, on the surface, like White should simply be winning with the extra material. Instead Petrosian's remaining pieces, freed of the need to defend against a kingside pawn storm, generated so much pressure that Reshevsky was forced to give the exchange back a few moves later with 30.Rxd3, and the game petered out to a draw that satisfied nobody's engine evaluation but that both players seem to have accepted as fair.

Mihail Tal, among many others, wrote that this quiet, non-forcing sacrifice made a deep impression on him precisely because it broke the usual rule that sacrifices need a concrete follow-up. It remains a fixture in exchange-sacrifice instruction seventy years later, less for its result than for what it demonstrates about compensation that never resolves into a direct attack.