Tactics

Hey chess enthusiasts! The chess theme for this week is tactics. We will begin by learning some different tactical motifs so that you can implement them in your own games. 

Theme 1, double attack: defined by a move that threatens two pieces at once. Here is an example:

Theme 2, pin: 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.

The first example is an absolute pin, where black is doomed to the loss of his/her queen.

The second example is known as a "relative pin" where black's knight could not move without the loss of his queen, but black could afford to defy the pin due to white's lack of development.

Theme 3, Eliminating the defender: Removing one of your opponent's pieces to obtain a goal or win material.

White removed the defender of the pawn on g7, and delivered checkmate

Theme 4, discovered attack: Moving a piece in  discovered attack is an attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another

Hopefully you will be able to use some of these crafty tricks to help you annihilate your opponents!