Deflection

This new blog post is about Deflection, one of my favourite tactics I must say. A good deflection often comes as a surprise to your opponent and can therefore be very efficient.
The previous post was about discovered attacks, feel free to have a look at it to know more.


Deflection is a tactic that forces an opposing piece to leave the square it occupies. It is then deflected away from defending a piece or an important square
This post is inspired from the corresponding Chess Trainer lesson, I want to help beginners to grasp the tactical motifs of Chess.


Let's start with a very simple example of deflection:

Discovered attack

This is another blog post about the basic tactical patterns everybody must know. Today we are going to study the Discovered Attack. This attack is another way of forcing your opponent to deal with 2 different threats at the same time. I have already explained why this is so efficient in my blog post about double threat.

So, let's start with the definition: a discovered attack is an attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another, discovering this second pieces' attacking potential. This is a very poweful tactic.
This post is inspired from the corresponding Chess Trainer lesson.

Double Threat

Welcome to my fourth lesson about well-known tactical patterns. We are slowly going through all the patterns an intermediate player must be able to recognize instantly.
Remember the Fork ? This lesson is about the double threat, which is a generalization of the fork, in a sense.

 I have taken the screenshots from my app, Chess Trainer, download it to get even more free lessons.

Let's start with the definition: a double threat (or attack) is a single move after which the opponent faces two dangers. The idea is that the opponent only has time to address one of these threats. Fork, as seen before, is an example of a double threat, but the topic of this post is to detail other types of double threats that are not exactly forks (but very much alike).


As usual, here is a little puzzle for you (Don't jump too fast to the solution !):

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The Skewer

Hello everyone !

This is my third lesson about well-known tactical patterns. We have already studied the pin together. Our following lesson is about the skewer, and as usual, all screenshots are taken from Chess Trainer.

A skewer is very similar to a pin. The only difference is that the piece of greater value is now in front.
The opponent is forced to capture the more valuable piece away to avoid its capture, thereby exposing the less valuable piece, which can be captured.

As usual, we start with an example:

The Pin

This is my second lesson about well-known tactical patterns. We have already studied the fork together. Now we are going to have a look at the pin.
As usual, all screenshots are taken from Chess Trainer.

We are here to learn how to win this material advantage with a pin. this post includes some examples and also a few puzzles to help you dealing with this configuration.
First, the definition: a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece.

Sounds obscure, right ? Let's see an example of an absolute pin:

The Fork

With this blog post, I intend to start a series of lessons about well-known tactical patterns. The fork is surely one of the most important tactics in Chess, thus it seems logical to start with it.

(Before starting, have you read my previous article about How to checkmate with King and Rook ?)

The goal of many tactical patterns is to win material. As an advantage of 2 pawns is often enough to win a game, a single tactical shot can put you in a winning position. It is very common to win a full piece after a fork. And once you have a significant material advantage, the rest is "only a matter of technique" as they say.
So we are here to learn how to win this material advantage with a fork. this post includes some examples and also a few puzzles to help you dealing with this tactical pattern.


Let's first start with the basic principle of the fork: