Tactics, anyone?

From one of my games. In the actual game it was Black's move, so he had the opportunity to prevent White's threat. But let's pretend that it's White's move:

Hint: The Black Queen is over-loaded... she has too many jobs to do. Can you give her one more task?

And here is a beautiful Interference combination from a game by Tarrasch, played more than 100 years ago. I will explain how it works, and then you can see if you can find the winning move.

Interference is a tactical theme that takes advantage of the fact that the Bishop, Rook and Queen all move in straight lines (unlike the Knight, for example). These straight lines, files and diagonals, will often intersect on certain squares... which makes those squares especially sensitive, since they must be kept EMPTY if the lines passing through them are to remain open.

In the following example, Black is under heavy attack but he seems to be holding it together, at least for the moment. His Rook at c8 prevents the threatened Rook mate on c5, while his Queen on d7 prevents the threatened Queen mate on b7. But these two lines (c8-c5 and d7-b7) intersect on the c7 square... so that square must be kept EMPTY...

Awesome puzzles, and the explanation was really instructive. 

Yeah, I used to teach Chess, many years ago.

Another useful area of study are the Model Mates. These are basic checkmate patterns, which tend to fall into groups or families that share a common theme.

For example, the Lolli mates are all based on an advanced Pawn, typically on f6 (or f3 if White is the one getting mated). I'll give a few of the Lolli mates, starting with the simplest and getting more complicated as we go along.

I don't like the second puzzle in your model mates because there are at least 3 other move 2s that will transpose. But I love the idea of the "growing puzzle", and  the rest of these are spectacular

Yes, some of the puzzles are "cooked" (means: more than one solution). Putting another Pawn on f4 might fix it (since Qh4 is not a solution due to ... h5).

But I was just throwing these examples together, not writing a book.

Want a few more?

Another type of Model Mate is the Broken Fianchetto mate. As a group, they are based on a weakness in the opponent's King's field, where he has played g6 (or g3 as White) but has no Bishop at g7 (g2) to cover the weakened squares.

Here's one:

And one from one of my OTB games:

Well, I wasn't very impressed because it gave my solution for #2 as wrong. But I liked mine better, mainly because it was the first thing I saw. White plays Qd5 and however black defends the checkmate, plays QxB followed by Ne7 checkmate.

Not sure what you mean. Isn't that line a move slower?

1. Qd5 e6 2. Qxe5 f6 where's the mate? It takes you four moves instead of three, no?

(I know that it is really easy)

Slightly jealous that this puzzle thread is more popular than my puzzle thread =P

Here's the actual OTB game that my first example (post #2) is taken from. It shows how to put some of these tactics together into a string of moves:

I wish I could play like that...

I'm also capable of playing absolutely horrible games.