Hi everyone! This is Pomi. And now I'm going to show you an important tool in chess, its name is Decoy.

What is the Decoy?

The decoy is a chess tactic that forces a piece to move to a specific square, sometimes to make a forced mate, for gaining material, or for doing a tactic.

What is the difference of a decoy and a deflection?

Deflection: Is when you want a piece to leave a specific square, or a specific group of squares. It doesn't matter where it goes, we just want it to leave that place.

Decoy: Is when you want a piece to go to a specific square. We don't just want it to leave its square, we want it on that specific square.

Examples:

Here we can win a Queen using and promote a pawn using a decoy:

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Here we can deliver checkmate using a decoy:

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Here we can fork two important pieces using a decoy:

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Why are decoys important?

Decoy (as many other chess tactics) are important because they can help you generally gaining material, delivering checkmate, or promoting a pawn. But you can use it for many other things, like improving your position, or have a better development, it's less usual tho. Also, I personally consider it one of the most beautiful tactics in chess.

Thanks for reading! I hope you can use this in your games!

Also, thanks for helping me with the article

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