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BRB #5 | Deflection Tactics in Chess
© Pattanaphong Khuankaew

BRB #5 | Deflection Tactics in Chess

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"Quite often a defender manages to hold life and limb together with one brave piece. To break down this kind of heroic defensive posture, the attacker needs to chase away this key unit. At times, the displacement of this one critical piece can completely ruin the defender's game and reduce his position to ashes. Pulling this kind of defensive piece away from its duties is what deflection is all about." -IM Jeremy Silman, The Complete Book of Chess Strategy

Deflection is a tactic within chess that forces an opposing piece to leave whichever square, rank, or file it occupies. Sometimes this can lead to exposing the enemy king, or material. The term deflection is typically used in the context of combinations or attacks, where the piece which is deflected is critical to the defense. In this blog-post, I'll be sharing a few of my favorite puzzles involving deflection tactics, and explaining them! Let's dive in! 

In this popular puzzle, white has a crushing, yet simple deflection tactic. Can you find it?

The correct move for white in this position is 1.Re8+!. Notice how this attacks black's Rook on d8, which is defending the queen on d6. If black moves to capture this rook, the queen loses its defender and will be captured on the next turn, by 2.Qxd6. If black chooses not to capture the attacking rook, and move out of the check with a move such as 1...Kg7, white can continue with 2.Rxd8. In this position, black's queen is under attack from two pieces now- no matter what, black will be down the exchange. Let's move on to another puzzle! 

This puzzle is from a game between Adams-Torre, in New Orleans, 1920. This is one of the most popular deflection puzzles- can you find white's deflection tactic?

White can see that Rxe8+ could lead to mate if black's Queen or Rook on c8 could be deflected from defending the e8 square. If white is able to simply remove one of these defenders, no matter the cost, they can achieve mate. The first move, 1.Qg4! threatens black's queen, and if black captures white's queen, they get checkmated. (1...Qxg4?? 2. Rxe8+, Rxe8 3. Rxe8#) 1...Qb5 2.Qc4!! White continues to try to sacrifice their queen, in order to achieve mate by displacing black's queen, defending the e8 square. Black still cannot capture the queen, because it still needs to defend this square to avoid mate. After 2...Qd7, 3.Qc7!!, attacking both black's queen and rook on c8- however, both pieces still need to defend e8 in order to avoid getting mated. So, 3...Qb5, 4.a4! White continues to harass the black queen, so: 4...Qxa4. White replies with 5.Re4!, (Threatening 6.Qxc8, Rxc8 7.Rxa4 with an extra rook in the endgame.) 5...Qb5 6.Qxb7! It was in this position in the game that black resigned, with no way to avoid the imminent checkmate. 

Here's one last deflection puzzle. See if you can find the solution!

Here, the main idea is for white to get their queen to the h4 square, to threaten a checkmate on h7. However, first, we need to deflect the black queen from the diagonal where it can see that square. After 1.Rb8!, Qxb8?!, white can now play 2.Qxh4, and no matter what move black makes, it cannot avoid the looming Qh7# checkmate.

These were just a few puzzles with the theme of deflection that I wanted to share, I may put together more blog-posts in the future sharing more puzzles that I think are interesting! I'll be playing in the Checkmate at the Cummer tournament this weekend, so keep an eye out for a blog-post showcasing my games from then! That's the end of this blog, thanks for reading! happy.png