http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html
List of tactics from Palatnik & Alburt
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Dec 9, 2014
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Dec 9, 2014
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Nice link/list, Boogalicious! I noticed they subdivided the motif "decoy" so that it includes "attraction," a term I never heard of before but that I used to call "sucking" since it's unique, memorable, and relatively common in mating puzzles, and one I noticed is a common theme. That's the same type of organization I was thinking of making, too, although I'm more interested in generalizing such lists first, before subdividing motifs by type of piece, type of position, number of ply, and so on. I think I'll copy that chesstempo list and merge it with Palanik's list above.
As a first attempt at organizing Palatnik's list for the "Winning" section motifs, I believe I would divide it up as follows...
A. VERY GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS
p. 79: in-between move
B. MEDIUM-SPECIFIC PROCEDURES
p. 163: back rank invasion
p. 167: 7th rank invasion
p. 95: seizing a square
p. 99: breaking down the defense
p. 109: removing the king's pawn cover
C. SPECIFIC PROCEDURES
C.1. NON-POSITION-SPECIFIC
p. 21: decoy
p. 24: deflection
p. 27: obstruction
p. 30: pinning (they use this as an amazing tactic, not as a static attribute)
p. 36: skewer
p. 46: square clearance
p. 49: clearing a line
p. 54: interference
p. 66: double attack
p. 67: discovered attack
p. 69: discovered check
p. 75: double check
p. 77: x-ray
C.2. POSITION-SPECIFIC
p. 129: sacrifice on f7
p. 134: sacrifice of bishop on h7
p. 143: Lasker's combination
p. 149: sacrifice on g7
D. STATIC ATTRIBUTES OF A POSITION
p. 169: overloading
p. 178: far advanced pawns
I thought people here might be interested in some preliminary findings I made in a study I'm doing for myself regarding tactics.
I'm currently involved in a deep study for myself of organizing all tactical themes into a manageable, logical organization. Recently I went through the following book...
Palatnik, Sam, and Lev Alburt. 2013. Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player. New York, NY: Chess Information & Research Center.
...and listed all the "motifs" discussed in that book, which are shown below. I indented some motifs to represent that those motifs are subcases of the main cases--the book explicitly mentions that those are subcases, so there is a little bit of organization already--plus the organization by winning tactics versus drawing tactics.
WINNING TACTICS
p. 163: back rank invasion
p. 167: 7th rank invasion
p. 169: overloading
p. 178: far advanced pawns
p. 21: decoy
p. 24: deflection
p. 27: obstruction
p. 30: pinning
p. 36: skewer
p. 46: square clearance
p. 49: clearing a line
p. 54: interference
p. 66: double attack
p. 67: discovered attack
p. 69: discovered check
p. 75: double check
p. 77: x-ray
p. 79: in-between move
p. 95: seizing a square
p. 99: breaking down the defense
p. 109: removing the king's pawn cover
p. 129: sacrifice on f7
p. 134: sacrifice of bishop on h7
p. 143: Lasker's combination
p. 149: sacrifice on g7
DRAWING TACTICS
p. 193: stalemate
p. 198: perpetual check
p. 203: pursuit
It was definitely a good book, though it also definitely fell short of excellent, in my opinion. The tactical examples given were extraordinarily clever and blew me away, especially interference sacrifices, which must be rare: I might never have even thought of those possibilities, so just having read the book meant I became aware of completely new possibilities, even in endgames, which gave me an appreciation of just how clever chess can be. Whew.
The list above is a list of what the authors call "motifs," therefore they aren't necessarily "tactics" as we think of them, but are more like themes, weaknesses, or general procedures: sort of a mixture of things. That's my main complaint, and why I wouldn't say the book is excellent, and why I'm working to complete the organization where they left off. Here is how they describe "motifs":
-----------
(p. 18)
If there is a combination in the position, three things must be
present: motif, idea, and technique.
At first we become aware of the motifs that exist in the
position. On the basis of this awareness we seek a combinative
solution (the idea). Then we calculate the technical part--the
forced play.
-----------
This book made me aware of something quite important for the first time, though: the word "x-ray attack" has at least two different meanings as related to tactics. All my life until now I believed that an x-ray attack was the same as a skewer, but per online material the term has three different meanings: one is a skewer, another is the influence of a piece on the other side of an enemy's piece, and unrelated to tactics a third meaning is protection of one's own unit. This book discusses both meanings with examples, though the book had only one convincing example of a true x-ray attack, though I found more examples online.
My main complaint is that the above list is largely unorganized. How are all these different tactics related, if at all? For example, what's the difference between obstruction and interference? I finally figured that out, but the book didn't provide any such framework to allow one to truly understand the material. Similar questions: Is there a relationship between clearing a square and clearing a line? Would a capture qualify as clearing a square? How do delayed forks relate to immediate forks, and do such delays generalize to all the tactics they show? (They had a terrific example of a delayed fork from a GM game that one GM missed, which of course I completely missed, too--I didn't even know such tactics were possible! Again, extraordinarily clever examples!) Which motifs are general procedures versus inherent static characteristics of a position?
I'm in the process of organizing all this knowledge, but I just thought people would be interested in the above list and in some of the things I learned, as well as a quick review of that book, especially since so many people here are interested in getting better at tactics, as I am.