The Art of Sacrificing Review: The Verdict in 60 Seconds
On paper, GM Krishnan Sasikiran’s course has the most complete structure of any sacrifice course in our store. It moves from four different reasons to give up a pawn, through the exchange, the attack and the queen, and then spends a whole chapter on the defender — how to accept a sacrifice, meet an exchange sacrifice and survive an attack. The official running time is 8h 57m, and the examples, according to ChessBase, come from the author’s own games. Against that stand two honest limits: the practice section is small, and the course only runs inside ChessBase software on Windows.
Structure scores 9 because the official contents form a clear ladder with a defensive chapter most courses skip. Depth scores 8 on the strength of the scope, the running time and the independent reviewer’s praise for the explanations — we could not watch the lessons line by line, so we stop short of a 9. Practice value is 5: the ChessBase reviewer counted “only four training positions” across five chapters, although interactive exercises with video feedback are built into the lessons. Format scores 6 because a Windows-only program is less flexible than plain videos. For other titles on the same theme, see our chess courses list.
Meet the Coach
- Born 1981 in Chennai; Grandmaster title completed at the 2000 Commonwealth Championship
- Indian Champion in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2013
- Board-three individual silver at the 2014 Tromsø Olympiad, where India took team bronze
- Second Indian player to cross 2700; one of Viswanathan Anand’s seconds in 2013 (Wikipedia)
Work as a world-championship second is, at heart, the job of judging positions honestly before anyone else has played them — exactly the skill a sacrifice demands. ChessBase describes Sasikiran as “a conceptual player” and promises that he talks through his decisions at the board rather than only the final moves. That is the selling point of the course, the independent reviewer singles it out as well, and it is the thread running through this The Art of Sacrificing review.
How to Get the Course
How the 8h 57m Is Organised
ChessBase publishes the total running time but not the length of each lesson, so for this The Art of Sacrificing review we measured the course the only honest way available: by counting the lessons in each chapter of the official contents. Source for the diagram: the ChessBase product page, 19 entries in all (chapter headings excluded).
More than a third of the lessons are about the pawn, and more than a fifth about defending. That balance says a lot about the author’s priorities: the small, frequent decision gets the most time, and the side of the board most players neglect gets the second most. Read as a path, the contents look like this:
Worked Case: The Contents as a Sacrifice Checklist
In our other reviews this section follows one idea from a transcript. Here that is impossible, and no honest The Art of Sacrificing review should invent Sasikiran’s analysis. What we can show is how the official lesson titles work as a decision tool — useful in its own right, and the clearest way to see what this course is trying to teach.
- Name the return. The pawn chapter splits into four goals: long-term initiative, initiative (two parts), restricting your opponent (two parts) and long-term active play (two parts). Before any sacrifice, decide which of the four you are playing for.
- Ask how long it lasts. The titles separate “long-term” compensation from the initiative you must use at once. If your return disappears in three moves, you need to calculate; if it is permanent, you can judge.
- Raise the stake only for a bigger return. The next chapters move to the exchange, the attack on the king and the queen. The independent reviewer describes this order as the course’s logic: every step costs more material, so the compensation has to be more convincing.
- Change chairs. The fifth chapter asks the same questions from the defender’s side: when to accept and counter-attack, how to play against an exchange sacrifice, and how to endure a sacrifice-induced attack over two lessons.
- Test it without a board. ChessBase says that “occasionally, the student is asked to calculate blindfold along with him” — the course also trains the visualisation a sacrifice depends on.
Used this way, the course gives you a vocabulary for your own games even before you open a single lesson. Whether the lessons themselves deliver on it is the part we leave to the independent reviewer below — and, after delivery, to you.
What the Independent Review Found
Coach and arbiter Lukas Köpl reviewed the course for ChessBase News on 8 November 2025 and gave it four out of five. His positives: a complex topic broken down systematically, a clear and logical structure, concise explanations and practical examples from the author’s own games. He also notes the lesson format — “each lesson is preceded by theoretical ideas, which are then applied in practice and examples.” His two criticisms are just as clear: the course is very demanding for absolute beginners without an overview of positional factors, and the practice section is thin.
That second point matters for this The Art of Sacrificing review, because it decides how you should study the course. If you need volume of training, plan to add a separate puzzle source; the course is built to explain decisions rather than to drill them.
The Index, Turned Into a 6-Week Study Plan
The package details are on the course page. Because ChessBase does not publish per-lesson running times, this plan is built on the official lesson list rather than minutes: 18 lessons and a practice section over six weeks. On average the 8h 57m works out at under half an hour per entry, but check the real lengths inside the program and adjust.
| Week | Lessons (official contents) | Entries | Then do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction · Pawn for long-term initiative · Pawn for initiative 1–2 | 4 | Find one pawn you refused to give in your own games |
| 2 | Pawn to restrict your opponent 1–2 · Pawn for long-term active play 1–2 | 4 | Label each example with one of the four goals |
| 3 | Exchange sacrifice 1–2 · Sacrificing for the attack 1–2 | 4 | Enter your answers in the interactive exercises |
| 4 | Queen sacrifice 1–2 · Accepting the sacrifice and creating a counter-attack | 3 | Replay the sample games in your database |
| 5 | Playing against the exchange sacrifice · Enduring the sacrifice-induced attack 1–2 | 3 | Play the defending side against an engine |
| 6 | Practice positions | 1 | Solve them, then revisit any chapter you rushed |
ChessBase FritzTrainer · Tournament Level
GM Krishnan Sasikiran — The Art of Sacrificing
Introduction, five chapters on pawn, exchange, attacking and queen sacrifices and on playing against them, and a practice section — 8h 57m by the official figure, in a Windows ChessBase package. Format and size are listed on the product page.
Test Yourself: Is This Course Right for You?
Without a transcript we cannot quiz you on Sasikiran’s lessons, so these questions come from the official contents and the ChessBase review. They test the framework the course is built on — if the answers are new to you, that is a good sign the structure will help. Tap a question to reveal the answer.
1. Which four goals do the pawn-sacrifice lessons name?
2. Which chapter sets this course apart from most sacrifice courses?
3. What does the publisher say you will occasionally do alongside the author?
4. How many training positions did the ChessBase reviewer count?
The Art of Sacrificing Review: Strengths and Gaps
A full map of sacrifice, including defence
The first strength in this The Art of Sacrificing review is scope: the course covers every scale of investment, from one pawn to the queen, and then turns the board around. That fifth chapter is the strongest argument for buying it: club players lose far more games to unsound sacrifices they handled badly than they win with sound sacrifices of their own.
Grandmaster thinking, explained aloud
Both ChessBase sources stress that Sasikiran explains his reasoning and feelings during his own games, and the independent reviewer calls this the heart of the product. For a player rated around 1800–2200 that is often more useful than another perfectly annotated classic.
Where it is thin: practice and format
Four training positions are not many for almost nine hours of video, and the Windows ChessBase format will not suit everyone. If you want exercises after every chapter, IM Kostya Kavutskiy’s Positional Sacrifices Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are built that way — see our Vol. 1 index review and Vol. 2 index review. For sheer volume of sacrifice patterns, add 1001 Brilliant Chess Sacrifices and Combinations; newer players should begin with First Steps in Gambits and Sacrifices.
Which Sacrifice Course Is Right for You?
To close this The Art of Sacrificing review, here is how it compares with four other sacrifice titles in the store. Every link opens the product page with full details.
| If you need… | Choose |
|---|---|
| Every scale of sacrifice plus a chapter on defending against them | Sasikiran — The Art of Sacrificing |
| Positional pawn sacrifices with an exercise set per chapter | Kavutskiy — Positional Sacrifices Vol. 1: Pawns |
| Exchange, piece and queen sacrifices with 20 exercises | Kavutskiy — Positional Sacrifices Vol. 2: Pieces |
| One whole course on the exchange sacrifice | Ziegler — The Art of the Exchange Sacrifice |
| A large pattern collection to solve | Reinfeld — 1001 Brilliant Chess Sacrifices and Combinations |
- Complete ladder from the pawn to the queen
- Four lessons on defending against sacrifices
- Examples from the author’s own career, with his reasoning
- Interactive exercises with video feedback and blindfold calculation
- Positive independent review (4/5) on ChessBase News
- Only four training positions, per the ChessBase reviewer
- Windows ChessBase package, not plain video files
- No per-lesson runtimes published; we could not transcribe it
- Rated for tournament players and professionals, not beginners
FAQ
Is this The Art of Sacrificing review based on the course videos?
Partly no, and we say so openly. The package is a protected ChessBase program without plain video files or a transcript, so contents, running time, level and features come from the official ChessBase product page, the ChessBase release note and an independent review on ChessBase News.
How long is the course?
ChessBase lists a running time of 8h 57m across an introduction, five chapters and a practice section. Per-lesson times are not published, so our study plan is built on the official lesson list.
What do I need to run it?
A Windows computer. The course is a ChessBase FritzTrainer package; ChessBase lists Windows 10 or higher and sells a separate macOS download, which is not what this package contains.
How is the course delivered?
Digital files. Crypto payment only. Fast delivery is handled manually after payment confirmation. Download links remain available for 7 days; save your files locally.
This The Art of Sacrificing review has to end with a qualified recommendation. The structure is excellent, the defensive chapter is rare and valuable, and an elite grandmaster explaining his own decisions is exactly what sacrifice training needs. The thin practice section and the Windows-only format keep our score at 7.1 out of 10 — a strong choice for tournament players who want understanding, less so for anyone who wants drills.
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