Tactical Motifs Flashcards
(60 cards)
Advanced Pawn
The threat of pawn promotion posed by an advanced pawn is often seen at the heart of tactical possibilites. Resources required to prevent the promotion are not available to help elsewhere on the board and this can be exploited to create tactical opportunities.
Attraction
Attraction occurs when a player entices a piece to a square (often using a sacrifice) where it will later come under attack. This can sometimes also be called a Decoy tactic, although some users apply that to luring a piece AWAY from a square instead of towards one.
Avoiding Perpetual
A tactical line where the correct move sequence prevents the opponent from giving perpetual check.
Avoiding Stalemate
A tactical line where the correct move sequence requires you to avoid stalemating the opponent king.
Blocking
Blocking occurs where one piece is forced to a position where it blocks the path of another. The difference between Blocking and Interference is that interference blocks the impact of one piece on another piece or square, but blocking tactics block the previously available escape path of a piece.
Capturing Defender
The player captures an opponent piece that was previously defending a piece or square, leading to the previously defended piece or square to come under attack. This is often called removing defender, but to avoid overlap with the distraction motif (where the defender is removed by distracting it away rather than taking it), the more specific, “Capturing Defender” is used instead.
Clearance
Clearance comes in two forms, the first is where a player moves one of their own pieces to clear a square for another of their pieces. The second form of clearance occurs when one player forces a piece away from a diagonal, rank or file (often using a sacrifice) to make way for another piece to utilise or attack the cleared path. Note that clearances where the player clears a piece to make way for a piece behind it to attack another square or piece is sometimes referred to as clearance, however on Chess Tempo these should be considered discovered attacks.
Coercion
Coercion occurs when a player forces a piece to a square where it will later come under attack. This tag is designed to differentiate two situations where the attraction tag has been applied in the past. The Attraction tag is to be used where the piece is attracted to a square via a sacrifice. The Coercion tag is to be used when the piece is forced to the square without a sacrifice.
Counting
A tactic occurring due to a mistake in evaluating the material balance arising after a series of takes.
Defensive Move
The opponent has a serious threat, and you must meet it in the correct manner. Other methods of meeting the threat do not win.
Desperado
A situation in which both sides have a piece (or pieces) hanging, and you capture material with your hanging piece in order to gain a more favourable material balance at the end of the sequence of captures.
Discovered Attack
A discovered attack occurs when a player moves a piece which opens up an attack that was previously blocked by the moving piece. This attack may be on either another piece or an important square.
Distraction
Distraction (sometimes called deflection) involves forcing the opponent to move a piece that was previously guarding important squares or pieces.
Double Check
A move that checks the opponent king with two pieces at the same time. These will involve a Discovered Attack, and it is acceptable to use both tags on the problem.
Exposed King
This is not really a tactical motif as such, but is used to explain positions where mate or other tactics are possible due to the exposed nature of the opponents king. For this tag to apply, the king should be exposed at the start of the problem, rather than being exposed during the problem. It should not be applied where the exposed nature of the king has no impact on the tactical outcome.
Fork/Double Attack
Forks/Double attacks occur when one player’s piece attacks multiple opponent pieces (or important squares). The opponent can’t counter all threats so loses material. This tag is only to be used where a single piece attacks multiple opponent pieces, it is not be used in discovered attack situations where one piece moves to attack another piece, while creating a discovered attack from a second piece.
Hanging Piece
This is not a real tactical motif. It describes the initial position of a problem in which the opponent has left a piece to be taken for free, or has left a more valuable piece to be taken by a piece of lesser value. The tag should not be used when a piece is hanging after some other tactical motif has been applied, such as a Fork or Skewer or Pin. The hanging piece should be able to be taken with material gain on the first move, with no further moves required to secure the gain.
Interference
The player cuts the line between an opponent bishop, rook or queen and a square or piece it is defending by either interposing one of the player’s pieces, or forcing the opponent to interpose their own piece. The difference between this and blocking is that Interference blocks the impact of one piece on another piece or square, but blocking tactics block the escape of a piece.
Mate - Anastasia’s
Anastasia’s mate occurs when the opponent king is trapped against the edge of the board, with a rook (or less traditionally, a queen) delivering the mate on the first or last rank or file. A knight blocks two escape squares, and one of the opponent’s own pieces blocks escape via the square not covered by the knight.
Mate - Arabian
The Arabian mate involves checkmating the opponent king in the corner of the board using a rook and knight. The rook delivers the mate on the edge of the board adjacent to the corner square, and the knight protects the rook and prevents the king escaping on the second empty edge square adjacent to the corner.
Mate - Back Rank Mate
Back rank mate occurs when the opponent mates a king that is trapped on the back rank by its own pawns and has no pieces to interpose or take the opponent’s attacking piece (usually a rook or queen).
Mate - Balestra
The balestra mate is similar to Boden’s mate, but involves a queen and a bishop instead of two bishops. Like Boden’s mate, the queen and bishop mate the king along two intersecting diagonals. In balestra’s mate the bishop delivers mate, while the queen sits one square back and to the side of the mated king, and blocks escape squares. In the balestra mate, the queen is able to block all escape squares without the help of the opponent’s own pieces.
Mate - Blackburne’s
Blackburne’s mate requires the co-operation of two bishops and a knight to mate the opponent king on the edge of the board with an opponent piece blocking the uncovered escape route. One bishop delivers mate on a square adjacent to the king while being protected by the knight. The other bishop protects the diagonal , while the knight also protects the escape square of the color of the checking bishop (which may have already been blocked by a piece friendly to the opponent king). An opponent piece blocks the opponent king’s escape along the edge of the board.
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Mate - Boden’s
Boden’s mate occurs when the opponent king is mated by two bishops on intersecting diagonals, with the king’s escape routes cut off by its own pieces.
