Chess Blog

All of us appreciate beautiful chess combinations that occur at all levels – from games between amateurs to those between top grandmasters. A combination is nothing but two or more tactical moves in a sequence that create an advantage for the player who has thought it up. If you examine any such combination, you will find certain elements of tactics have been strung together. At every stage of the game, you should be aware of these tactical possibilities and how these can enable you to get an upper hand on your opponent.

‘Cooking’ up a combination is literally similar to the art of cooking! No matter how esoteric a dish is, its preparation will involve a few of the standard processes of cooking like frying, boiling, steaming, roasting and so on. In the same way, even the deepest chess combination comes out of some standard chess tactics. If you know these techniques, it is up to your imagination to combine some of these to create a memorable combination!

You will notice that at the heart of all chess tactics, there lies some kind of threat or the avoidance of threat. The tactics may threaten the gain of material or a checkmate of the opponent’s KIng, immediately or soon after the move. Your opponent will of course try to counter these threats, but in the process gets forced to create weaknesses in his position which can be exploited by further tactical moves. The build-up of the weaknesses ultimately results in his capitulation.

Though these chess tactics can find use at any stage of the game, they come most useful during the middle game – either for outright win or for steering it towards a winning end game. We will now examine these elements of tactics and see how these are used in games.

1. Check

A check holds importance because the opponent has to attend to it before all else. But check for check’s sake does not achieve anything. Rather, if your opponent can develop his pieces or pawns while refuting the check, it gains him a valuable tempo. Check as a tactics is beneficial when it forces your opponent either to make moves that give him an inferior position or to divert him from his own plans.

In the following position after 25 moves, check is used to force the opponent to defend in a way that exposes him to further tactics threatening the loss of a piece.

Following position after White’s move 20. Re3 shows how Black used checks as a tactics to corner the White King.

In above two examples, you will notice that other tactical elements like discovered check and pin have been used to exploit the initial check. These and other elements of chess tactics will be discussed later.

Another use of check is to erode the support of one piece for another, making for quick gain of material. In the next position, White plans to exploit Black’s back rank (another tactical element to be explained later) but needs to remove the defensive support of Black’s Rook at c8. He does it by using the power of check.

Sometimes, even the threat of a check is enough to win material as shown in the following typical endgame situation which you must take note of.

The only winning move for White is 1. Rh8. If 1. … Rxa7, then 2. Rh7+ or if 1. … Kg7, then 2. a8=Q Rxa8 3. Rxa8. In either case, White wins the Black Rook.

We will continue the discussion of the other tactics in the next part.