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:

The solution is simple, but probably comes as a very bad surprise for Black:

1. Rg7+
A very unpleasant surprise for Black
1... Kxg7
Black has no real other option than capturing the Rook with the King, leaving the Queen undefended.
2. Qxe7+
White has managed to capture the Queen at the cost of one Rook.

The resulting position:

In this example, there is a possible deflection in the air, find it !

Solution:

1. Bxf7+
The Bishop sacrifice comes out of the blue
1... Kxf7
Black has only one move here
2. Qxd8
And the Queen is captured in just 2 moves !


The next example uses the threat of a back rank mate to win with a deflection:

Solution:

1. Re8+
The important thing to notice was that the black Rook was overloaded, having to defend at the same time the queen on d5 and the e8 square.
1... Rxe8
The mate threat comes first obviously
2. Qxd5
Note that it is very important that White is not under the threat of a back rank mate himself here: with the pawn on g2 instead of g3, 2... Re1 would be checkmate. Here of course, White answers with 3. Kg2 and wins the game.







That's it about Deflection, a nice and often surprising tactical pattern.
If you want to learn more on deflection, I recommend you to continue with Louis Holtzhausen's blog post on the topic, which contains additional examples.

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