Double Attack: Discovered Attack Part 1

Discovered Attacks

Discovered attacks is essentially an ambush. Diagram 1 below is an example

Diagram 1. White to play

Diagram 1 shows a simple but clear example of a discovered attack. If White moves his bishop, he will create a discovered attack on the Black Queen with Rook on e1. However, moves like 1.Bd3 or 1.Bf3 don't accomplish much because Black would sidestep his Queen to safety on d6 or f6. This is where the double attack comes in handy. By playing 1.Ba6!, White creates a discovered attack on Black's Queen and also attacks his Rook on c8, threatening two pieces at once with once move.

  After you have grasped the principle in an example, it can be instructive to change the position a bit to see how the change affects the result. In Diagram 1, how would putting the Black b6-pawn on b7 affect the situation? What if the Black rook were on a8 instead of c8?

Diagram 2. White to play

 In Diagram 2, Black has two knights (6 points) vs. a Rook and a pawn (6 points) and appears to be doing well. Unfortunately, both Knights are undefended. White creates a discovered attack with 1.Ke3!. Suddenly, Black's d8-Knight is attacked by White's Rook, and f3-Knight is threatened by White's King. Black, to his sorrow, is forced to part with a knight.

Full Credit to Yasser Seirawan for this post

I hope you enjoyed learning from what he teaches