Tactics Training

You have access to opening-specific tactics databases organized by the 5 Main Opening Groups and their corresponding Opening Groups. Each Opening Group contains a dedicated tactics database. In total, this includes over 100,000 tactical puzzles, taken from real games.

The tactics are rated from 1600 to 2800 and include full solutions. They reflect the tactical patterns that arises from each chess opening. As rating levels increase, the positions are based on games played at progressively higher strength.

These databases are designed for systematic tactical training within opening contexts, allowing players to study tactics that arise from the openings they actually play or encounter in real games.

Tactical Combinations from Real Games

Chess Combinations that leads to a decisive win

Sacrifices that leads to checkmate or a clear win

Annotated Games

Blockade is defined as an act or means of sealing off a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving. In chess we change it to get blockade defined as an act of sealing off a square to prevent pieces or pawns from entering.

The way this sealing off is accomplished on the chessboard is by physically occupying the square in question with a piece or pawn that cannot be captured. Thus to blockade a pawn (usually involving passed pawns which need to be stopped from advancing towards promotion) we place a unit on the square directly in front, preventing the pawn from moving forward.

When tactics are involved, a major target is often the opponent’s king, whose mobility needs to be decisively reduced in an attempt to force a checkmate and is usually preceded with one or more decoy piece sacrifice(s). Another major target is the opponent’s queen, which may be trapped after blocking all escape squares.

At times, a tactical blockade is executed by forcefully sacrificing all the remaining active pieces, with the sole purpose of achieving a draw via stalemate, effectively blocking in ones own king. In other instances, a strategic blockade may result after a sacrifice or a combination, leading to an impenetrable fortress and a draw.

A blockade may also involve blocking the opponent’s pieces from being able to assist in defending their king, after which a direct assault on the now undefended or poorly defended king would lead to a decisive material gain or checkmate.

Another form of blockade is to make sure enemy pieces are stuck behind pawn chains, thus physically preventing them from entering perhaps large sections of the board at all.

The usual clearance ideas in chess are recognized in basically two forms.

One, when a piece is moved to vacate (clear) its square for another friendly piece, which will usually deliver a decisive blow to the opponent’s defenses on the next move.

Two, when a piece or pieces are forced away from a rank, file, or diagonal, making way for another piece to decisively attack along the newly cleared pathway.

Both forms usually require forcing sacrifices to be made, as the opponent should never be expected to willingly clear a way for your attack. To ease the sacrificial element in the chess player’s mind, these could be referred to as exchanging an attacker for a defender, rather than giving up material.

Clearance combinations usually (but not always) start off with a check to the opponent’s king and when not of a forcing type are basically a double threat.

In life, a decoy is “a bird or mammal, or an imitation of one, used by hunters to attract other birds or mammals.” It can also be “a person or thing used to mislead or lure someone into a trap,” or “a pond from which narrow netted channels lead, into which wild duck may be enticed for capture.” (source: The Oxford Dictionary)

In chess, a decoy is yet another fundamental tactic. It is when a piece offers itself seemingly as a blunder, when in fact it is cunningly luring, by sometimes even forcing another piece (usually the king) to capture it on a usually “poisoned” square. Sometimes it clears the way of a previously blocked file or diagonal, allowing immediate execution of a winning move or a winning combination.

For the chess players at the board, decoys are either artistically very eye pleasing, or insted shocking, depending on which side of the board the player is sitting at. A decoy over the board does not necessarily mean one side will win or lose. Sometimes it just helps to develop a piece to a more promising square.

A decoy can be recognized in advance by visualizing a key opponent’s piece disappearing from the board and sometimes appearing on another (usually the decoy) square. This opponent’s piece, apart from any other duties it may be performing, is the key defender (or one of the key defenders) inside the enemy’s camp. To progress in seeing follow-up winning combinations involving tactical themes, solving and analyzing instructive exercises are as usual the best training.

Deflection refers to causing (something) to change direction, or turn aside from a straight course.

In chess, it is a common tactic used to lure an opponent’s piece away from protecting an important friendly piece.

The deflected piece becomes distracted, leaves the square, file, or rank it occupied, increasing the weakness of another friendly piece, which is then targeted either for capture or checkmate. When used within a combination, other tactical methods may follow or be a part of the deflection process.

To perform a successful deflection, it is common to start off with a sacrifice, which if in the end gains material, is actually a temporary one only, also known as a “sham sacrifice.”

As usual with combinations, the desired or best-calculated outcome is a decisive material gain or checkmate. We also witness deflections for the purpose of stalemating ones position when in a disadvantage.

Notable deflections may be executed as early as the opening phase of the game and are often seen in gambit variations.

In physics, it refers to the conversion of matter into energy. Both give a good hint on its effects when applied to a game of chess. The sense and the practical effects of the destruction are felt when one side removes the opponent’s key piece or pieces from their defensive positions, usually resulting in a win by either decisive material gain, or by delivering an unstoppable checkmate to the enemy king. The method of physically removing an adverse piece from its current square is usually done via a sacrifice of a piece of a higher value for a piece of lower value.

Any material imbalance prior to executing an annihilation of defence is often irrelevant. A common element within an annihilation is that the annihilated piece is usually defended by only one friendly piece. In reply, the opponent is usually limited to one reasonable response, which is most often the re-capture, rather than accepting an immediate material loss. The overall feeling of achievement after a successful annihilation of the defense is a spectacular one.

The opponent’s castled king is most often well guarded by a barrier of pawns directly in front of it. The strategy of removing these pawns involves a tactic known as the demolition of the pawn structure. To perform a successful attack on the enemy king, sometimes it may be enough to remove only one of the pawns, sometimes two and sometimes all three. To accomplish that, ones own minor and/or major pieces may need to be sacrificed, usually one piece for each of the key defending pawns and usually via consecutive sacrifices in a unique order of moves.

A first demolition pawn capture is usually either a check, an attack on a valuable minor or major piece, or a checkmate threat, basically forcing acceptance of the sacrifice (without an Club Player move or a counter-attack), allowing the attacker to continue the demolition process.

A double attack in chess can be both interpreted and recognized in a number of different ways:

a) a “fork” (a single piece threatening to capture any of two enemy pieces at the same time,
b) two friendly pieces threatening to capture one of two enemy pieces,
c) two friendly pieces threatening to capture one enemy piece at the same time,
d) a combination of a threat to capture with a check,
e) a triple (or multiple) attack.

With many possibilities, it’s no wonder it is a most common tactical (or “magical” if you like) resource, which is used on all levels, in all phases of the game and of course both by White and Black.

Interfering with other people’s business is generally not advisable. Except when playing chess!

Interference is also sometimes referred to as “blocking the guard.” This relatively rare over-the-board tactic is recognized most often when planting a piece between two enemy units, or between an opponent’s piece and a critical square, breaking their direct connection over any number of squares.

At times, the interference move may cause the opponent to settle a piece in between two of his own, again resulting in an inner blockade and loss of control and coordination.

Sometimes a piece is placed in the path of an opponent’s piece and a friendly piece, basically eliminating the possibility of the opponent capturing it on the at least next move.

When interposing ones own piece, an immediate threat should be created. Most often (but not necessarily) it requires a material sacrifice resembling a blunder to start off with. In examples of chess problems, also useful for the chess players’ study, interference is a common theme.

Any piece other than a king can be interposed for the purpose of creating an interference tactic.

In chess, the discovered attack refers to a tactical coordination between two friendly pieces (teamwork) in executing a threat, capture, check, or checkmate. This teamwork basically amounts to a piece (or pawn) moving out of the way of a friendly long-range piece (queen, rook, or bishop).

We can identify several basic types of discovered attack:

1) Discovered Attack
The threat to capture comes from the uncovered piece.
The moving piece may be credited with assisting.

2) Discovered double attack
The threats to capture come from both pieces.

3) Discovered Attack with a capture
The capture is executed by the moving piece.

4) Discovered Attack with a check
The check comes from the moving piece.

5) Discovered check
The check comes from the uncovered piece.

6) Discovered check with a capture
The check comes from the uncovered piece.
The capture is executed by the moving piece.

7) Discovered double check
The checks come from both pieces. The opponent has no other option than moving the king.

8) Discovered checkmate
The checkmate comes from the uncovered piece.
The piece moving may be credited with assisting.

9) Discovered “double checkmate”
The checkmate comes from both pieces delivering a check to the opponent’s king.
It remains unclear which one (or both) of the two pieces should be credited for ending the game!?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, in life, pinning refers to “holding (someone) firmly in a specified position so they are unable to move.”

A definition on pinning in chess is also given (!): “Hinder or prevent (a piece or pawn) from moving because of the danger to a more valuable piece standing behind it along the line of an attack.”

Well done! But sometimes, the “pinned piece” does not mind being pinned at all, as un-pinning it may lead to a successful combination. Thus, pinning a piece “blindly” may backfire.

Wikipedia is somewhat surprisingly more complete: “In chess, 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. “To pin” refers to the action of the attacking piece inducing the pin and the defending piece so restricted is described as pinned. Only pieces that can move an indefinite number of squares in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line, i.e., bishops, rooks and queens, can pin opposing pieces. Kings, knights and pawns cannot pin. Any piece (or pawn) may be pinned except the king, as the king must be immediately removed from check under all circumstances.”

Pinning is not a tactic by its good definition above. However, the benefits or dangers of tactics often loom on and around the pinned piece.

Pinning can further be dissected into direct and indirect and even further into absolute, relative and partial pins. Absolute pins often result in winning the pinned piece, while relative and partial pins allow the pinned piece to sometimes un-pin itself.

We see examples of pinning in all three phases of the game, played by both White and Black. Valid motivations behind a move which directly pins are:
a) simply development, or
b) restricting mobility of the pinned piece, or
c) exchanging when forcing doubling of the opponent’s pawns so as to weaken the pawn structure, for example around a castled king,
d) the main motivation being, as is usual, gaining material in the near future.

Indirect pins are performed usually when attacking, with the prime objective of gaining material.

The phrases “Pin and win!,” and “The pin is mightier than the sword!” are very popular among chess players and chess trainers alike.