From part 1 of this guide, you should already know the basics of tactics. However, while knowledge of forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, and removing the defender is nice, mastering just those 5 tactics won't get you to the point of being a GM, There are lots of additional tactics you need to know. These upcoming tactics are more difficult than the first 5, but are still essential and can build strong advantages nonetheless. This part is for players with a rating of 500-1200. But first, let's take a further look into one of the signature tactics of the first part: The pin.
1. Absolute pin. This is the stronger form of the pin where a piece is pinned to the king, completely restricting them. This pin is stronger for 2 reasons: Moving the piece out of the pinned area is completely illegal as it would put the piece in check, and it is also harder for the king to defend that piece. In the last part we saw an example of an absolute pin, so let's just move on to:
2. Relative pin. In this form of the pin, the piece is just pinned to a piece more valuable than it, which is weaker than the absolute pin because the piece can safely unpin itself by moving under some circumstances, and stronger pieces like rooks and queens are better at defending pieces. Here is an example of why relative pins are weaker than absolute pins:
In this position, black thinks they have successfully pinned white's knight, but their knight moves in a way that it defends the queen, successfully unpinning the knight.
Now for the new tactics:
3: Battery. This is a tactic where you have 2 or more pieces lined up so that they both attack the same rank, file, or diagonal that they are lined up on. This can be useful to put lots of pressure on attacked pieces or threaten checkmate. Here is an example scenario where a battery is used to gain an advantage.
In this position, white forms a battery with the queen and bishop, threatening checkmate while also attacking a bishop. This forces black to defend against mate, allowing white to take the bishop for free.
4: Overloading. This occurs when an opponent piece (often the king) Has to control several squares or pieces at once, which is too much of a burden for it, so when that piece defends one of your threats, it becomes unable to defend the other, which allows you to gain material. Here is an example of overloading:
In this position, black has 2 pawns that are close to promotion, and they push one of them, so white's king comes to stop promotion. But the king is overloaded, so black can push the other pawn, and when white takes the pawn, black promotes the other.
5: Attraction. This tactic has some other names, but that doesn't really matter as much as what the tactic is and why it wins for the most part. It is basically a sacrifice that lures a piece to a weak position where it can be attacked later. Here is a example of attraction:
In this position, white is down a queen for a rook and bishop, but they use the attraction technique and sacrifice the rook to attract the queen to a square where they can land a skewer with the bishop. The king tries to hold on by keeping defense of the queen, but through a series of checks, white gets a second attacker on the queen and wins material. (Taking with the king would still lead to a skewer.)
6: Double check. This is a technique that involves combining a direct and a discovered check, allowing you to check a king with 2 pieces at once. This is significant because the check coming from 2 directions at once disallows blocking the check or taking the checking piece, meaning the king is forced to move. This can lead to checkmate, or it can lead to directly winning material. Here is an example of a double check:
In this position, black is down a rook for a bishop, and white also has a battery threatening black's queen. However, black pulls off a strong double check, which also comes with a royal fork (a fork of both the king and queen). Because white is in a double check, the queen can't take either piece, so after the king moves, black can take the queen for free.
7: Double attack. This tactic sounds the same as a double check, but for a non-king piece, but I promise you, it's not the same. It's basically the fork's older brother, in which it isn't restrained to attacking 2 pieces at once, but instead it makes 2 threats at once. So one of the threats can be a mate threat, for example.
The example scenario for the battery shown earlier also showed a double attack. The queen threatened mate while also threatening a bishop, and since the bishop was on the opposite color of the mate threat, and there was no good way to defend both threats simultaneously, white won the bishop after black defended mate.
8: Desperado. This is a tactic where a hanging piece essentially captures a defended piece worth less than it because it was gonna get taken anyway. Not really something that builds an advantage, just something that doesn't lose advantage. Here is an example of desperado being used:
In this position, black does a royal fork, so white's queen launches a desperado attack, taking the defended bishop, because the queen was going to be lost after the fork anyway. This secures a rook vs. rook position, which is a theoretical draw.
So, part 2 explored pins further, as well as providing 6 new tactics that can end up being quite important in games: Battery, overloading, attraction, double check, double attack, and desperado. This brings the total number of tactics to 11, and getting good at them all will easily secure you a position as a decent chess player, so long as you don't blunder much. Good luck!
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