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Ce dont tu as besoin pour gagner, c'est de sacrifier le cavalier.

Ce dont tu as besoin pour gagner, c'est de sacrifier le cavalier.
What you need to win is to sacrifice the knight.
From Lesson 335:Alternative conjunctions (soit... soit...)·French

Questions & Answers about Ce dont tu as besoin pour gagner, c'est de sacrifier le cavalier.

Why do we use ce dont here instead of ce que?
We use ce dont (what / the thing that) because the underlying verb phrase is avoir besoin de (to need). The relative pronoun dont replaces objects introduced by the preposition de. If the verb didn't take de, you would use ce que (e.g., Ce que tu veux - What you want).
Why is there a de before sacrifier in c'est de sacrifier?
When you use an emphatic structure like Ce dont... c'est... followed by an infinitive, you usually include de. It essentially "echoes" the de from the first part of the sentence (avoir besoin de). The full pattern is Ce dont [subject] + [verb + de], c'est de + [infinitive].
Why do we need c'est in the middle of the sentence? Couldn't we just say "Ce dont tu as besoin... est de sacrifier"?
While it looks redundant to English speakers, French strongly prefers using c'est to link the two halves of a sentence when you start with a pronoun phrase like Ce dont, Ce que, or Ce qui. Dropping the c' and saying just est would sound grammatically incomplete and unnatural.
Does cavalier always translate to "knight"?
In the context of a game of chess, yes, le cavalier is the knight piece. In everyday French, however, it translates to "rider" or "horseman" (someone riding a horse) or a woman's dance partner.

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