I think we can say that a "sacrifice" is giving up something in hand for something not in hand, whether it is a piece for "compensation" or a bull for the favour of Mithra, or any other deity or supernatural power. A "trade" is an equal exchange. A "gambit" must be a special subset of sacrifices, referring to sacrifices made in the opening.

It is worth noting that I.A. Horowitz coined the term 'grand gambit' for piece sacrifices in the opening.

This got me interested in where the word "gambit" comes from. Man! I am really hitting the dictionary tonight. Here is what it says "Italian gambetto, literally, act of tripping someone, from gamba leg, from Late Latin gamba"

I guess that at least the origins of the word focus more on the "trick" aspect of the gambit opening than the act of sacrifice.

Also interesting is the question of when the opening is "over" for the purposes of "gambit" being the term rather than sacrifice. There are certainly gambits sacing a piece - like that line in the Petroff or the Pierce Gambit in the King's Gambit

Yeah, I've heard that it was an Italian wrestling term or something, involving tripping or leg holds, or something. But I haven't the slightest idea why something like that should find its way into chess.

But here's something interesting on thefreedictionary.com




I've heard the word use that way. A "conversational gambit" is an icebreaker of some kind, with no concept of sacrifice implied. That usage probably derives vaguely from chess terms. There seems to be something in parlance where all strategy is compared to chess (football commentators saying that it's been a real chess game).

From this definition though, it looks like "gambit" means "a positional sacrifice that's in the book." It would be nice if it could be used to mean all positional sacrifices.

I've never heard the term Grand Gambit, but there aren't many of them, and most of the ones I know are King's Gambit lines: The Muzio Gambit, the Allgaier Gambit, the Rice Gambit. The only one I can think of that isn't in the KG is the Cochrane Gambit in the Petroff. Oh yeah, and the Irish Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nxe5). If we were going to use a term like Grand Gambit, I'd want it to include all gambits larger than one pawn (so the Danish Gambit would qualify).

I'm not familiar with the Pierce Gambit, at least not by that name.


I gather that the rule is that if it's in the book, it's a Gambit, if not, it's a sacrifice.

The Pierce Gambit is a fun way of harassing the king in the King's Gambit. I came across it in a book on the Vienna game and seemed fun for 5- minute games but I have not been able to talk opponents into pushing the g-pawn so early and the two or three times when I played it, I lost due to general suckiness.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-opening-database/search/Pierce-gambit

Oh okay, that's similar to the Muzio. Another one of those KGA piece sac lines.

The Fried Liver Attack is another piece gambit that isn't a King's Gambit Line.

I wrote a monograph on three Grand Gambits in the King's Gambit: the MacDonnell, the Lolli, and the Ghulam Kassim. Fun lines, all of them. Not very good though.

MacDonnell: 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. P-KB4 PxP, 3. N-KB3 P-KN4, 4. B-B4 P-N5, 5. N-B3.

Lolli: 5. BxP ch

Ghulam Kassim 5. P-Q4.

The last one has the best name.

The Jerome Gambit is another Grand Gambit: 1.P-K4 P-K4, 2. N-KB3 N-QB3, 3. B-B4 B-B4, 4. BxP ch KxB, 5. NxP ch. Fun! I've played it about thirty five times.