Chess?

[JoePhilly]

37. Which is why I asked if you were he.

See, Fischer was well known for gambits that would allow him to gain positional and initiative advantages at the expense of material (aka, points). Such gambits include sacrificing all sorts of pieces before your opponent has "developed" their pieces.

For Fischer, he realized that the material deficit he faced could be mitigated while the opponent's pieces were still stuck on the back rank. He also knew that if he failed to win quickly, or to regain the material lost, he'd be in trouble.

So, his gambits often provided him a brief window in which his positional and initiative (ability to attack) could allow him to either checkmate the opponent or regain the material lost.

Now, the problem is that this approach is not one that dominates high level chess. The majority of high level chess players do not sacrifice pieces in the manner that Fischer did. Fischer is in fact one of the few chessmasters who have been able to dominate the game using that approach.

In the OP, you suggest that sacrificing pawns in a significant part of what chess is. You are wrong.

Using that approach will generally cause you to lose ... unless of course, YOU are Bobby Fischer.

Which I doubt since he died a few years back.