Until you learn this, YOU are spell chess NOOBS. (freeze tactics)

Yes, I’m not afraid of saying it, you are all noobs until you learn the freeze tactics. So, in good spell chess students that you are, you obviously ask me : “what the heck is a freeze tactic ?” A freeze tactic is a tactic using a freeze spell which consists to attack a piece with a freeze so after he counterfreeze, that piece will next move be in danger and you have time to create a new threat so the opponent cannot deal with both.

1. Forced freeze tactics

A forced freeze tactic is a freeze tactic you’re gonna use on the king, which means with a check.

Exemple 1 :

Consider the following moves :

1. e4 e5

2. Bc4 c6

In this position white can play the move :

3. freeze@e7Bxf7 freeze@e6Nf6

Because after black freezes back you can firstly play 4.Qf3 which will uncstle the king and bring a positional long term advantage which could be exploited by playing… [very long text…], but you can also play the moves :

4. jump@a2Rxa7 or jump@h2Rxh7

And black is in check and will lose a rook and a jump for a bishop, and most importantly, the rook will always cause very annoying problems in the back-rank.

Exemple 2 :

Consider the following position :

Black is attacking the white queen with it’s bishop, toh white can ignore it and play the move :

8. freeze@e7Nxd6 freeze@c5Rf8

And after black freezes back as usual (because remember he’s forced or he would lose the game immidiatly), white has many moves but the best, the crushing one, the mating one is :

9. jump@e6Qxf7+#

Checkmate ‘cause the queen is protected by the knight, she covers all the king squares, and the king is in double check.

Exemple 3 :

Consider this endgame position :

Black seems completly winning because he has a rook for a bishop, and a pawn ready to get through white’s defense. But black made a mistake : he put all of it’s important pieces in a 3×3 square, and white can play the move :

1. freeze@e7f5+ freeze@f4d3

2. Bh4

And this is gonna be a drawable or even winning position for white.

Remark : you can also do a freeze tactic with one piece blocking a check because of the threat to take the king with jump.

General exemple :

Here are all the most commun ideas with a freeze tactic :

Thanks for reading this article, if you have questions, reactions, write them in the forum, and I’ll soon write an article on freeze tactics : part 2.

@Delhy

Is it bugging, or did you put only 1 step?

cool, thanks for the info

It actually is bugging

chess.com has problems with accepting pictures in forums so he cut my article

Ah it’s done !

Nice article, this was helpful, and example two was a beautiful checkmate! I have been toying around with the idea of 1.freeze@d8e4, and im wondering if that opening is actually any good? You use a freeze on move one which might not be the correct use of it, and after a7 from black I dont have much ideas how to progress and not make my freeze useless

@Fire I first thought the opening 1.freeze@d8e4 was wasting a move for no reasons but it’s actually way more complicated : the move Nf6 has some crazy lines with rook jumps ultra powerful, but it’s right with g6 or a6, there’s not always a clear follow-up. I’m studying this line with @sicilian_defender_I and we will try finding some tricks. Anyway I think after championships in the summer I’ll do a react and an analysis of all the opening used.

yeah Nf6 has come crazy lines with a lot of quick wins, its usually my favourite line to play out after freeze@d8. g6 is playable after Qf3, you have Qc3 threatening to take the rook and causing back rank complications or if they dont allow that Bc4 is there as well, but a6 just nulls all my attacks. Its just one of those openings you hope your opponent dosent play

Yeah, ich really am exited to Analyse the games after the championship with you.