Tactics # 2

In chess, the first thing anyone learns is tactics. However, chess is not 99% tactics and 1% strategy. It's both of them mixed together !

Despite that, tactics are very important. Chess is an unfair game and 60 best moves can not win a game while one bad move can be the cause of defeat. Tactical oversights even happen to the bests of us.

For example Carlsen, in this game where he had white against Anand in their 2014 WC match blundered a "not too difficult" tactic.

However, Anand didn't find Nxe5 and went on to lose.

To practice your tactical skills, here are a couple of tactics!

Good luck!

Example 1: This one is from a 3+2 game I played on chess.com. The game started with the gambit Be2 Bb4 0-0 Bxc3 bxc3 Nxe4 Qd3 d5 Ba3 Qa5 Nb5 against the sicilian four knights:

Example 2: In a 4+2 game vs a 2100 with white (my FIDE blitz rating is 1500), in the middle of the french blitz championship, we played this Najdorf. My last move was Qg3 to make my opponent play Nh5. Find why that was a mistake!

Example 3: I saw this game in a John Nunn book. It certainly looks like white cannot lose on the spot but chess is a game full of suprises.

Example 4 : I invented this one based on a game played by one of my friends at the french team youth championship. In the game, there was two winning moves so I chose to make a tiny change to the position to leave only one solution. I was watching the game live online  and was certainly suprised by the moved he played, which caused resignation.

Example 6: In this game, we both had played the opening in a strange way and after a mix of good moves and inaccuracies, we arrived to this position: