Chess Blog

9. Deflection and Decoy

Deflection is a chess tactic used as part of a combination. It forces an important defensive piece of the opponent to move from its current position, thereby creating weaknesses which are exploited to create a mating attack or to gain material advantage. It is quite common to see a sacrifice being used to force the opponent’s hand.

Decoy is a chess tactic of similar nature where an important piece, usually the King or Queen of the opponent, is forced to move to some specific position where it can be subjected to a mating or capturing attack. This tactic is also commonly associated with a sacrifice.

There is only a subtle difference between these two tactics. In Deflection, you force the opponent’s piece to vacate its present position whereas in Decoy, you force it to move to your desired position.

I have seen the word ‘entice’ or ‘ensnare’ being used to describe decoy, but I would refrain from using such description. Such connotation implies a trap which works only if the opponent falls for it. But a real decoy move is a forcing tactic and the opponent can avoid it, if at all possible, only at the risk of encountering an equal or greater danger.

Let us first look at some examples of deflection.

The following position occurred after 19 moves and White produced a move that tries to deflect either of the two pieces attacked – Rook at a7 to vacate the 7th rank or Queen to vacate the a5-d8 diagonal.

The following position is taken from a Kasparov-Kramnik game played at Novgorod in 1994. Though White winds up the game with a deflection tactic at move 36, we start with the position after 25 moves to show how White employed other tactics like check, pin, fork etc. with some sacrifices thrown in to induce and force Black to a situation for the final coup de grace.

In the next two diagrams, you can see how decoy moves are used. In the first one, a queen sacrifice is used to draw out the Black King from out of its castle to expose it to mating attack by White’s other pieces. The position occurs after 17 moves in a game between Petrosian and Pachman in 1961.

In the following game, a rook sacrifice by Black forces the White King to come out of its Q-side castle and then a series of checks drives it to the Kingside where Black is ready with his mating attack. The diagram shows the position after 15 moves.