Chess tactics
The patterns that win games, each shown with a short example. Learn one, then drill it until you see it instantly.
Basics
The patterns behind most won games
- Fork: One piece attacks two things at once. They can only save one.
- Pin: A piece can't move because something more valuable is behind it.
- Skewer: Attack a valuable piece; when it moves, take the one behind it.
- Discovered attack: Move one piece out of the way and the piece behind it attacks.
- Double check: Check from two pieces at once. Only a king move can answer it.
- Removing the defender: Take the piece that guards something, then take what it guarded.
- Hanging pieces: A piece nobody defends. Always check for free material.
- Trapped piece: A piece with no safe squares. Surround it, then win it.
Next level
Combinations that set the basics up
- Deflection: Force a defender away from the square or piece it guards.
- Decoy: Lure a piece (often the king) onto a square where it gets hit.
- Overloading: One defender, two jobs. Make it choose.
- Zwischenzug: The in-between move: before recapturing, play a stronger move first.
- X-ray: A piece attacks or defends through another piece on the same line.
- Clearance: Move a piece out of the way to open a square or line for another.
- Interference: Put a piece between two enemy pieces to cut their connection.
- Quiet move: No check, no capture, but it wins: the hardest kind to see.
- Sacrifice: Give material on purpose to get something bigger.
- Attacking f7 / f2: The weakest square at the start: only the king defends it.
Mating patterns
Recognise the finish
- Mate in 1: Find the move that ends the game.
- Mate in 2: A forcing move first, then the mate.
- Mate in 3: Three forcing moves. Checks first, then captures, then threats.
- Back-rank mate: The king is boxed in by its own pawns on the back row.
- Smothered mate: A knight mates a king that its own pieces surround.
- Anastasia's mate: Knight and rook trap the king on the edge.
- Arabian mate: Rook and knight mate a king in the corner.
- Boden's mate: Two bishops on crossing diagonals mate a castled-long king.
- Hook mate: Rook, knight and pawn hook around the king.
- Double-bishop mate: Two bishops side by side sweep the king’s squares.
- Dovetail mate: The queen mates right next to the king; its own pieces block the way out.
- Greek gift: The bishop sacrifice on h7 (or h2) that rips the king open.
Endgame tactics
Pawns, promotion and the last few pieces
- Promotion: Get a pawn to the last row and make a new queen.
- Underpromotion: Sometimes a knight is better than a queen.
- Passed pawns: A pawn with nothing in front of it. Push it, or stop it.
- Pawn breakthrough: Give up pawns to make one that can’t be stopped.
- Zugzwang: Every move makes things worse. Make them move.
- Rook endgames: The most common endgame: checks, cut-offs and passed pawns.
- Queen endgames: Checks everywhere: find the one that wins.
- Knight & bishop endgames: Outposts, wrong-colour bishops and knight forks.