High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the game of chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece or pawn in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value. Any chess piece except the king can be sacrificed. Because players usually try to hold onto their own pieces, offering a sacrifice can come as an unpleasant surprise to one's opponent, putting him off balance, and causing him to waste much precious time trying to calculate whether the sacrifice is sound or not and whether to accept it. Sacrificing one's queen, or a string of pieces, adds to the surprise, and such games can be awarded brilliancy prizes.