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Sometimes one of your pieces is on a square that another one of your pieces would just love to get to. When that happens, you should look for the most advantageous way possible to get the piece out of the way. Sometimes the best way to get the piece out of the way is to sacrifice it. (A sacrifice is when you voluntarily let your opponent get a material advantage.) When you sacrifice a piece in order to get it out of the way, it’s called a clearance sacrifice.
Tal (White) is ahead only the Exchange for a pawn-a 1-point edge-and would love to pad his advantage with more material. He realizes that if White's Queen were not on e6, he would be able to launch a royal fork with Ne6+. For a tactical genius like Tal, the solution is obvious: 1. Qxf5!. With this one move, he clears the e6-square and devours a Knight at the same time. Black resigns rather than face 1...gxf5 2.Ne6+ Kg6 3. Nxc7, after which the material disparity would be too great for him to hope of catching up.1Qxf5Rxf52Ne6+Kg83Nxc7

Clearance Sacrifice: Clearance Sacrifice: Gaining Materials40

Tactics Intermediate