Predator at the Chessboard. Vol 1

8/12/2019 Predator at the Chessboard. Vol 1

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Chapter 1.

Introductory Matters.


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1.1. A Short Guide to the Site.

Spectacular chess moves produce the same

sorts of satisfactions as the climactic moments

of other great games: the slam dunk, the thir-

ty-foot putt, the home run. In chess thesemoves are known as tactics. This web site

teaches them in detail. It assumes you know

only how the pieces move and builds step-by-

step from there. Every idea is illustrated with

lots of examples, and every example is ex-

plained in plain language that describes a train

of thought leading from a problem to its solu-

tion. Funny-looking notation is held to a min-

imum. You can treat each example as a puzzle

and try to solve it before reading the explana-

tion, or just read the explanations as you go.The object throughout is to provide a teaching

tool that makes the secrets of chess easy for

anyone to understand. It's a chess book for

people who think they dont like chess books.

(The site also has a new sectionthe Chess

Quizzerthat lets you test your understand-

ing by working on positions chosen at random

and with their explanations hidden.)

You can start reading anyplace. The rest of

this first section gives a fuller account of the

idea behind the site and how it differs from

existing books; then comes a primer on the

most important general principles of tactics:

double threats, loose pieces, and forcing

moves (if those terms aren't old hat to you, the

explanations probably will be useful). Last are

some pages discussing further points of inter-

est to some but not othersthe notation used

in the diagrams, acknowledgments, how to

change the look of the font, and other miscel-lany.

After this introductory part there are five large

sections, one for each of the great families of

chess tactics: the fork; the discovered attack;

the pin and skewer; the removal of the guard;

and mating patterns. Within those sections are

a total of twenty chapters; within the twenty

chapters are nearly two hundred topics. Each

topic is illustrated with about a half-dozen

positionsoccasionally fewer, and some-times quite a few more.

If you want to skip any or all of this first part

and plunge into the specific lessons, you can

go back to the table of contents (theres al-

ways a link at the upper right corner of the

screen) and click on The Knight Fork or

whatever other topic sounds appealing. The

sections build on each other a bit, but most ofthem can be enjoyed on their own with no

trouble if you prefer to dip in at random or

skip parts that get tedious. If you want to na-

vigate through these early parts or any of the

other sections more precisely, click on the

plus (+) signs in the table of contents to ex-

pand each menu. Or click at the top of the

contents page to expand all the menus and see

the entire structure at once (I recommend

this). Or you can flip around by starting any-

where and using the arrows at the bottom ofeach screen to go page by page. (Clicking on

the forward (>) arrow at the lower right cor-

ner of this page, for example, will walk you

through the rest of this first section.)

This site aspires to be the most detailed and

systematic treatment of basic chess tactics yet

published. It also is meant to be the most con-

genial to those who like things explained in

English. How far it succeeds, and where it

might be improved, the reader will judge; I

welcome corrections and suggestions, and

apologize in advance for the inevitable typos

or other glitches (and thank those who have

called such mistakes to my attention). All

feedback can be sent by way of the link at the

bottom center of every page.

Let us begin.

1.2. Rationale for the Project.

Why Tactics?

If you have played chess at all, you know it is

easy for the two sides to trade pieces: your

knight takes my bishop, my pawn takes your

knight, and we're even. But if your knight

takes my bishop and I cant capture yourknight, you gain an edge that probably will be

decisive. If one player has more pieces than


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the other, he usually wins without much trou-

ble; between good players, a one-piece advan-

tage is enough to cause the disadvantaged

party to resign. Thus the most important mo-

ments in a chess game generally occur when

you take one of your opponents pieces and

he gets nothing back, or vice versa.

So how does it happen that one side takes

another sides pieces for free? Between be-

ginners the common answer is that you wait

for your opponent to blunder by leaving a

piece unguarded, then you just take itand

hope you arent the one to blunder first. Chess

games that go this way aren't terribly interest-

ing, and they make it hard to understand what

all the fuss over the game is about.

The fuss arises because there are moves you

can make that force your opponent to cough

up pieces unexpectedly. All his men look

safe; but then you play a knight fork, a move

in which your knight attacks two of his pieces

at once. He only has time enough (one turn)

to move or protect one of them, so you take

the other for free. It's all very satisfying; and

it's even better when you first capture his

bishop, and he recaptures; then you check his

king, and it moves; and then you play the

knight fork, winning a piece. What makes this

so pleasing is that you've planned the fork and

forced your opponent to step into it by play-

ing a few initial moves that forced his replies.

These sequencesthe little clusters of moves

that win your opponents piecesare known,

again, as tactics. A tactical sequence generally

is a short bunch of moves that wins material(pieces or pawns) or that forces checkmate.

Such a sequence also is known as a combina-tion. (Some people quarrel over the distinc-

tion between tactics and combinations. We

won't.)

Now there also are other types of moves you

can make in chess that aren't meant to win any

pieces. Indeed, during a game you often will

have no way to play one of those nifty tactical

sequences, so you instead try to improve your

position: you put your pieces onto squares

where they have more room to move or areaimed at a part of the board where you are

trying to put together an attack; or you move

your pieces around to fend off your oppo-

nents attempts to launch attacks of his own.

This sort of play is called strategic. You are

working toward general, long-term goals, and

perhaps laying the groundwork for a tactical

strike of the sort described a moment ago.

When you make these sorts of moves youmay well not be seeing many moves ahead.

You just are arranging your pieces the way

you like, and your opponent is doing the

same. Since you arent making any immediate

threats, your opponent is free to go about his

business in ways that may be hard for you to

predict.

Strategy and tactics both are important, but

tactics are moreimportant. If you're a whiz at

finding clever moves that take your oppo-nents pieces, you will be a terrifying oppo-

nent, have a good time playing chess, and win

lots of games regardless of whether you know

a great deal about strategy. If you're a whiz at

strategy but not much good at tactics, you will

have trouble winning or having fun because

your pieces will keep getting taken. You cer-

tainly want to know something of strategy;

you need ideas about what you can do with

your pieces that will create eventual tactical

opportunities for them. We will talk about it

along the way. The point is just comparative:

if you want satisfaction, you had best start by

learning how to play tacticshow to spot and

execute sequences of moves that allow you to

take your opponents pieces.

What was said about strategy can be said as

well about openings. You can spend enor-mous time mastering the details of an open-

ing

say, the Italian Game or the French De-fense. The yield of those efforts, in victories

and in fun, probably will be small. You fre-

quently will find that your opponents play

drags you away from the opening you studied;

and even if not, the payoff of a successful

opening usually is a minor advantage in posi-

tion. By itself the advantage will not win you

anything or bring you much pleasure. What

will bring you immense pleasure, whether or

not you know much about openings, is taking

your opponents pieces. And to do that youneed to learn how to use tacticsthe weap-

onry of the chessboard.


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All this advice assumes you are not a strong

player already. Once the material on this site

all is old hat to you, close study of openings

and subtler points of strategy will make better

sense. One false move in the opening and

your goose is cooked if you are playing Garry

Kasparov; but this is a site mostly for novices,so if you are reading it you probably should

not be planning to play Kasparov anytime

soon. You should be planning to play others

of at least roughly your own strength pro-

bably friends who are casual players, or op-

ponents at the local chess club or on the inter-

net. If you keep playing you will move on to

better players, but it still will be a long while

before a deep study of openings really pays

off. In the meantime all of your opponents

even the strong ones

will give you plenty oftactical opportunities; they will commit over-

sights that allow you to play pretty combina-

tions and win pieces if you are sharp enough

to see the chances for them. Acquiring this

sharpness has nothing to do with memoriza-

tion. It's a skill you gain by learning what

clues signal that a combination may be possi-

ble, and by studying how to turn those clues

into ideas that work.

Why Another Book About Them?

Since tactics are the most entertaining and

important part of chess, it comes as no sur-

prise that there have been many books written

about them. This sitewhich amounts to an-

other book, and not a short onethus requires

a few words of justification. It differs from all

the prior work in several important respects.

Most books about chess tactics follow one of

two patterns. Some describe important tactical

ideasforks, pins, etc.and explain their

logic a bit, then provide perhaps a dozen ex-

amples of how each tactic works. The other

sort of book presents pages of diagrammed

problems for the reader to solve; the answers

usually are given in the back with minimal

commentary. Both types of books are valu-

able, especially when used together, but I longhave felt there was a place for a different ap-

proach. This project attempts to fill the gap.

Its distinctive features can be summarized as

follows:

Many examples, carefully organized. This site

goes into greater detail than other books do in

explaining each type of tactic and how to

overcome the various obstacles that can arisein trying to make it work. There are about 80

knight forks here, for example, and they are

broken down according to the different ways

the tactic can look when it is lurking two or

three moves away on an apparently placid

chessboard. It may be that the square your

knight needs is guarded but that the guard can

be taken; it may be that the piece you want to

fork is not very valuable but can be ex-

changed for a more valuable piece; it may be

that you do not yet have a knight fork but thatafter you check the enemy king a forking pos-

sibility will come into view. All of these pos-

sibilities, and many others, are illustrated with

about a half dozen explanations apiece and

sometimes more. The process is repeated for

all the major tactical motifs: there are more

than 100 queen forks, more than 300 pins,

nearly 200 discovered attacksall subdivided

into different ways each of these ideas can

look when it is a couple of moves away from

perfection.

This method of organization makes it easier to

learn in a systematic way about tactics and the

issues that come up in using them. Every idea

is shown in several contexts so that it will

sink in and the persistent features of the pat-

tern become familiar to you. And the many

examples of each complication also will makeit easier to recognize patterns during your

games: you will start to sense that the positionon the board almost resembles a recognizable

pattern and almost lends itself to a known

tactical theme. Then you can experiment with

forcing moves (e.g., checks and captures that

require predictable replies from your oppo-

nent) to make it work. The idea guides the

experimentation. But to have the idea in the

first placeto see, for example, that condi-

tions on the board suggest a possible knight

fork, even if the exact means of getting there

has yet to be worked outyou need a reper-toire of known tactical patterns that can be

stimulated by the positions you see. The pat-


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terns studied here, in all their little variations,

are meant to go into the reader's store of vis-

ual knowledge and become the basis of useful

intuitions and ideas.

Trains of thought explained. Chess tactics

tend to involve the use of certain root ideascognitive riffsthat get repeated and com-

bined in various ways. The explanations here

are meant to explain and reinforce those ideas

so they become a natural part of your thought

process at the board.

Here is a slightly larger statement of the point.

The quality of your chess is determined by the

quality of your train of thought when deciding

what move to make. The train of thought may

be partly verbal, partly visual, or partly intui-tive, but in any case it will involve a sequence

in which you consider candidate moves and

their pros and cons. The climb from novice to

something better largely is a move from me-

andering, unsystematic trains of thought to

more methodical and fruitful ones. For the

beginner it therefore is helpful to see more

than just a list of the correct moves that solve

a chess problem; it helps to hear what ques-

tions one might have asked to spot the pattern

and discover the correct moves for oneself.

Thus every example here is accompanied by

commentary explaining not just the right

moves but a train of thought that leads from

the position to its solution.

The trains of thought offered in the commen-

taries emphasize the use of clues: signs to

search for during your games that indicate a

tactic might be available. The explanations

show how the same sets of questions, some ofthem simple, can generate impressive tactical

ideas when they are asked and answered me-

thodically. Some trains of thought thus are

repeated many times. The repetition would be

inexcusable if the purpose of the project were

just to transmit information, for then once

would be enough. But the purpose is other-

wise; it is to help change your mental habits at

the board, and for this purpose an extra meas-

ure of clarity and some repetition both are

helpful.

This project especially is meant for those who

like explanations in words. Not everyone

does; some students of chess prefer just dia-

grams with lists of the moves required to

solve them. But I suspect that those who do

think best in words will find it helpfulmore

interesting, easier to understand, and morelikely to improve their playto have the solu-

tions to problems explained out in English.

These are matters of taste, and you, gentle

reader, may not think the world really needs

more words about chess. But if you do share

this sense of mine, and have not found that

most books about chess explain it in a way

that speaks to you or affects your play, per-

haps this site will change your relationship to

the game.

1.3. The Elements of Tactics: A Primer.

1.3.1 The Double Threat.

If you are new to chess, the sequences that

good players use to win games may seem

impossibly complicated. But most of them

actually are based on just a few general con-

cepts combined ingeniously and persistently.

This frame and the ones that follow explain

the concepts broadly. The rest of the site

teaches their use in detail.

The most important idea in chess is the dou-

ble threat. Generally speaking a double threat

is any move you make that presents your op-

ponent with two problems at the same time.

Since each player can make just one move perturn, your opponent only has time to addressone of the threats you have made. On your

next turn you execute the other one. Maybe

your first move checks his king and attacks

another of his pieces at the same time; or

maybe you threaten one of his pieces and are

building a threat of checkmate elsewhere. The

result is the same: your opponent has to spend

his next move dealing with your threat against

his king, and then you get to take the other

piece you were threatening.


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The universe of chess tactics can be divided

into four or five great families of ideas, each

of them a variation on the logic of the double

threat. This site is organized around them:

1. The first family, and the best-known type

of double threat, is the fork a move whereone of your pieces attacks two enemy pieces

at the same time. You no doubt have seen

examples of knight forks if you have played

chess for a while; the knight naturally lends

itself to moves in which it attacks two pieces

at once. But the same idea can be executed

with your queen or with other pieces, as we

shall see.

2. A second type of double threat, and another

family of tactical ideas, is the discovered at-tack. This occurs when you move one of your

pieces out of the way of another so that both

of them make separate attacks against your

opponent. Again, he only has time to parry

one of the threats. You play out the other one

on your next move.

3. A third family of tactical ideas involves the

pinor skewer. These occur when two of your

opponents pieces are on the same line and

you place an attacker so that it runs through

both of them. In effect you again are making a

double threatone threat against the piece in

front and another against the piece behind it.

4. And then there are countless other situa-

tions that may be lumped under the heading

of removing the guard, in which you capture

or harry an enemy piece that guards some-

thing else you want to take. Your opponent

cant defend against both threats on the oneturn allowed to him, so you are able to play

one of them or the other.

In effect most games of chess are contests to

see who can find a way to use one of those

tactical techniques first. One successful fork

(or discovery, or skewer, etc.) often decides a

game by giving one player an insurmountable

advantage over the other. This is why Richard

Teichmann said that chess is 99% tactics; and

it is why mastery of tactics is the key to hav-ing fun at the chessboard, not to mention win-

ning.

[Note: A fifth family of tactical operations

involves mating patterns: characteristic ways

that kings get trapped. These are treated in the

last section of this site. They do not necessar-

ily involve the logic of the double threat in the

way that those tactical devices just described

do. We also are leaving aside a few other,more minor families of tactics for now.]

1.3.2 The Loose Piece.

Another key idea in chess is the loose piece.

A loose piece is simply a piece that has no

protection. It is common for players to leave

pieces unprotected here and there; as long as

they arent being attacked, they look safe

enough. But loose pieces make perfect targets

for the double threats described a momentago. Suppose your queen performs a fork,

attacking your opponents king and one of his

rooks at the same time. He moves his king.

Now you can use your queen to take his

rookif it is unprotected. But if the rook is

guarded you wont be able to take it because

the cost will be too high: your queen will be

captured afterwards.

We can turn this point into advice for practi-

cal play. You want to be aware of loose

pieces on the board at all times. Any piece

your opponent has left unguarded is a possible

target for a tactical strike; any piece of yours

that is left unguarded is a vulnerability. In-

deed, you want to not only notice loose en-

emy pieces but also look for ways to create

them. We will see countless examples in the

studies to come. ("Loose pieces" also can be

defined to include enemy pieces that are un-

derdefended: attacked once and defendedonce by a fellow piece. As we shall see,

pieces in that condition sometimes can make

targets just as good as pieces with no protec-

tion at all.)

The great chess writer Cecil Purdy stated the

point as a rule: "Never leave or place a piece

loose without first looking for a possible fork

or pin, and never see an enemy piece loose

without doing the same." Do you follow this

advice already? Many inexperienced playersdon't. When they put a piece onto a new

square, they mostly just check to make sure it


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won't get taken there. Purdy's advice is differ-

ent. It is to ask whether your piece hasprotec-

tionon its new square; and if it doesn't, to ask

carefully whether a fork or pin or other tactic

might be launched against it. You may not yet

understand quite what it means to look for

forks or pins, but you will soon; and then fol-lowing Purdy's counsel will save you many

sorrows.

1.3.3 The Forcing Move.

Sometimes in chess you do whatever you

want to do and then your opponent does

whatever he wants to do. Other times its dif-

ferent: if you capture his knight with yourbishop, for example, he pretty much has to

recapture your bishop; otherwise he simply is

short a piece and probably will lose. (The

other pieces belonging to both sides gradually

will be exchanged away, and you will end up

with the only attacking piece left on the

board.)

Another example: If you check your oppo-

nents king, he cant do whatever he wants in

reply; he has to either move the king, block

the check, or capture the piece you have used

to make the threat. And if you make a move

that will enable you to deliver checkmate on

your next turna mating threatyour op-

ponent likewise will have to address it imme-

diately.

Checks, captures, and mate threats therefore

are known as forcing moves. In other words,

they are moves that force your opponent topick from a small set of possible replies. Theyare the essence of tactical chess; they allow

you to dictate your opponents moves and

thus control how the board will look two or

three or more moves from now. Other types

of moves may be "forcing" as well, mind you:

anythreat you make against your opponent

for example, a simple threat to take one of his

pieces on your next movemay force him to

reply in a certain way. This happens all the

time, and we will see examples as we go. Butchecks, captures, and mate threats tend to be

the most interesting and important kind of

forcing moves because they so powerfully

limit your opponent's choice of replies.

This notion of forcing moves helps clear up

some common confusions about chess. No

doubt you have heard about good players see-

ing ahead five moves, or a dozen moves, ormore; how do they do that when their oppo-

nents have so many possible responses to pick

from? The usual answer is that their oppo-

nents dont have so many choices after all.

Suppose I think like this: if I take your knight

with my bishop, you will have to recapture

my bishop; then if I check your king, you will

have to move it over one square; then if I

check your king on its new square, you will

have to block my check; then your rook will

be left loose and I will take it. In this case Ihave seen ahead four moves, but notice that I

didnt have to keep track of a lot of possible

variations. To each of my moves you only had

one plausible reply. I just had to realize this.

Of course sometimes your opponent will have

more than one plausible reply, and in that case

you will need to keep track of some variations

after all (if he does this, Ill do that; if he

does the other thing, then I go to plan B,

etc.). And its true that very strong players

can keep straight lots of variations. But its

also true that a lot of great tactical sequences

consist entirely of forced moves that make it

not so hard to see ahead.

Once you grasp the idea of forcing moves it

also is easier to understand how to come up

with nifty tactical ideas during your games.

Of course you might like to unleash a fork ordiscovery or skewer, but what if no such

moves are possible when its your turn? Doyou wait around for a fork to become avail-

able? No; your first job when you are decid-

ing what move to play is to examine your

possible forcing moves: any checks, captures,

or mating threats you can offer. You don't

look at these things just as ends in them-

selves; you ask what moves your opponent

would be forced to make in reply, and

whether you thenwould be able to play a fork

or discovery or skewer or some other tactic. If

the answer is no, you imagine playing anotherforcing move after the first one and then ask

the same questions.


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The point of experimenting with forcing

moves, in short, is that they change the look

of the board. They may open up lines that

currently are cluttered; they may cause your

opponent to leave pieces loose that now have

protection; they may make him line up pieces

that are not now on the same line; they maymake him put his king where it can be

checked. Your task is to imagine the board as

it would look after your forcing moves and

see if changes such as those would create tac-

tical openings for you. Gradually a pattern

you recognize may emergethe makings of a

fork or discovery or other idea.

With practice this becomes second nature: if

your rook is aimed at your opponents knight,

you automatically consider capturing theknight and allowing your rook to be taken.

This would be a sacrifice, of course, since

rooks are more valuable than knights, but

great tactical ideas routinely begin with sacri-

fices like that. The question is whether the

exchange of your rook for his knight would

leave you with a chance to play a fork or

other double threator with a chance to play

another forcing move that isnt yet possible.

Maybe after your rook is captured you then

can play a check that wasnt available before;

and maybe after your opponent responds to

the check you thenwill have a fork. But it all

starts by thinking about a simple capture you

can make and its consequences.

Likewise, you generally dont want to make

any moves without being aware of any checks

you give and their consequences. Checks arethe most forcing moves of all because your

opponent is required to reply by moving hisking, taking the piece that threatens it, or

moving a piece between them. This usually

makes it easy to see what a check will require

your opponent to do. And since a check often

forces your opponent to move his king, it may

lead directly to tactics that make the king a

targeta fork with the king at one end, or a

pin with a king at the rear, or for that matter

checkmate.

Looking at any checks and captures you haveto offer is like looking for loose pieces on the

board: these are things you do all the time

during a game, because most great tactical

ideas involve one of those elements or the

other.

1.3.4 Strategy vs. Tactics.

Often you will look at your forcing movesand decide they lead nowhere. Thats fine;

now you instead play a strategicmove rather

than a tactical onea move that improves the

quality of your position without trying di-

rectly to win your opponents pieces or mate

his king. But strategy and tactics are linked,

since one goal of strategic, positional play

is to increase the power of your pieces and

create fertile conditions for tactical strikes on

later moves. Sometimes this is a matter of

arranging your pieces so that they have morefreedom of movement and denying the same

freedoms to your opponent; sometimes it is a

matter of coordinating your pieces so that

they are aimed at the same sector of the

board; sometimes it is a matter of arranging

your pawns to help achieve those same pur-

poses for your pieces. At the end of our study

of each tactical family (and sometimes more

often), we will pause to consider its strategic

implications: what the tactical ideas teach

about the right sorts of moves to play when

there is no such tactic yet available.

All this talk of weaponry admittedly is ab-

stract. It will become concrete in the studies

that follow. We will look at over a thousand

tactical sequences. The rough structure of

most of these sequences, and of a large share

of all the great tactical moves ever played in

chess, is similar; it involves the elements just

described. First there are some forcingmoveschecks or captures or mating threats

that limit your opponents replies. Then there

is a denouement: a double threat, such as a

fork or discovered attack or one of the other

themes we will consider, that becomes possi-

ble after the forcing moves have changed the

board. As a result you are able to take a loose

or underprotected enemy piece. We can call

this a combination. The variations on this

pattern are limitless, and there is much to

know about its details: how to spot forcingmoves and figure out their consequences, and

how to spot the patterns suggesting that a fork


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or pin is in order. You can spend a lifetime

building your understanding of those things

and gaining skill at carrying them out under

time pressure. But as you get started it all may

be more manageable if you consider these

studies as variations on the single idea just

described.

The rest of this introductory section will be

discussing chess notation and jargon, then

some more technical aspects of the site. This

therefore is a good time for a reminder that if

you want to skip any or all of that stuff, per-

haps because you already are comfortable

reading about chess positions and want to cut

right to some lessons, you can go back to the

table of contents and navigate from there by

using the link near the upper right corner ofthis screen.

1.4 Notation; Jargon; the Look of the Site;

Hard Copies.

1.4.1.Notation and Jargon.

This site makes every effort to explain every-

thing in words, but when describing a series

of chess moves it often is convenient to use

abbreviations to describe them. Those abbre-

viations are known in chess as notation. This

site generally uses the algebraic notation

employed in most chess books, though with a

small difference explained below. Despite the

unpleasant label, it's very easy to understand.

Most of it can be figured out as you read, but

here is what you need to know about how itworks:

1. Squares are named by their coordinates

a4, e5, h8, etc.; these should be self explana-

tory, since every diagram includes numbers

running up the side of the board and letters

along the bottom. The numbered horizontal

rows are called ranks. The vertical columns

named by letters are calledfiles.

2. Pieces are named by their first letter. Q =queen; R = rook; etc. The only exception is

the knight, which is referred to as N to dis-

tinguish it from the King (K). Pawns are

named by their squares, so that d4-d5

means the pawn on d4 moves to d5. Some-

times in this book (and routinely in other

books) a pawn move is described without

bothering to name the square it came from:

one simply says "1. d5," and everyone under-stands this means that the pawn on the d-file

moves to d5.

3. Captures are described with an x between

the names of the pieces capturing and being

captured. So QxB means queen takes bishop;

Rxa5 means the rook captures the pawn on

a5; and h7xN means the pawn on h7 captures

the opposing knight.

This last point is the way that the notationhere varies from the usual algebraic notation

in other books. Algebraic notation normally

describes a capture by just referring to the

square where it occurs. Thus if Whites queen

takes Blacks rook on the f6 square, most

chess books would say Qxf6; but on this

site we will say QxR. The reason for the

difference is that this site is meant primarily

for people who havent read other chess

books before (as noted before, it's a chess

book for people who don't like chess books),

and for that audience the notation used here

will be more intuitive. It's easy to understand

that QxB means queen takes bishop: easy

to imagine, and easy to find on the board.

Qxf6, however, has to be translated into

queen takes bishop by looking at the board,

finding f6, and seeing what piece is there.

Thats easy when you know instinctivelywhere f6 is, but most readers of this project

probably will find it faster to locate the bishopthan to locate f6. The real benefits of naming

captures by the squares where they occur

come when describing long sequences, and

few of the sequences here will be all that

long. (The approach used here is similar to the

one used in Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, a

well-executed book for beginners.)

This approach to describing captures should

be easy to follow for readers already used to

ordinary algebraic notation; anyone can un-derstand what QxB means even if they are

used to reading Qxf6. The gripe I anticipate


18/248

from those who get worked up about these

things is that if readers become used to this

approach they will find it hard to read alge-

braic notation in other books: they will see,

say, Qxf6 elsewhere and have trouble re-

membering that the other author means to say

the queen captures whatever piece is on f6,not that the queen captures the f6 pawn (as it

will mean here). I regard this as a trivial com-

plaint; the reader of this site who does move

on to other books should have no trouble

making the transition if the above explanation

is kept in mind (or just figuring it out on the

fly; for this explanation makes the whole

business sound more confusing than it is in

practice). It's not that big a deal.

4. Turning back to the notation rules, castlingis indicated by writing 0-0 (if it's on the side

of the board where the king starts) or 0-0-0 (if

it's on the queenside: long castling, as it is

called).

5. Now a couple of minor points that don't

come up often; you probably don't need to

worry about them, but for the sake of com-

pleteness: if a capture is made en passant,

that's indicated by writing "ep" afterwards or

some variant. (I'm assuming you know what

an en passantcapture is, but if you don't, I'll

explain it if it ever gets used hereand in the

meantime you easily can find an explanation

of it elsewhere on the web.) Second, if one of

your pawns reaches the opponent's back rank,

it gets promoted to some other more powerful

piece of your choiceusually the queen,

though very occasionally some other choiceworks better. We indicate promotion with an

equal sign: f7-f8=Q means the pawn on f7moves to f8 and becomes a queen. Again, I'll

say more about this wherever it pops up.

Finally, if more than one piece could be indi-

cated by a description (in other words, if I

refer to "R" but there are two rooks on the

board and it's not obvious which one is

meant), sometimes the coordinate of the piece

will be given as well. So Rc8xN means the

rook on c8 (not some other rook) captures the

opponent's knight. Occasionally this approachalso will be used just for clarity's sake even if

there is no technical reason for confusion.

6. Sequences of moves are described in pairs,

with the White move first. Thus a game might

begin 1. e2-e4, e7-e5 [again, this could have

been written "1. e4, e5"]; 2. Nf3, Nc6; 3. Bb5,

a7-a6; 4. BxN, d7xB. This means that White

started by moving his e-pawn forward two

squares, and that Black then did the same;then on Whites second turn he moved his

knight to f3, and then Black moved his knight

to c6. White brought out his bishop. Black

chased it with his pawn on the a-file. White

replied by taking Black's knight. Black recap-

tured with pawn on c6. The position on the

left illustrates the result.

When we look at positions from the middle of

a game (as we generally will) we will de-

scribe Whites first move in that position withthe numeral 1 (as something like 1. Nf5,

for example). We call it 1 because its the

first move in the pictured position, even

though its not the first move in the game.

If we want to start by describing a move of

Blacks, we do it by saying something like:

Black can play 1. Nf5. The 1 followed

by the three dots indicates that were looking

at the first pair of moves in the position but

that were starting with the second halfof the

pair: in other words, with Blacks move.

7. A plus sign after a move (like this: Rh8+)

means that the move checks the enemy king.

A "#" sign after a move (like this: Rh8#)

means that the move is checkmate (or simply

mate, as we more commonly say).

8. It often happens that a player can sacrifice

a knight or bishop to win an enemy rook.Since rooks are more valuable than knights or

bishops, a player who does this is said to have

won the exchange. If we reach a stage of

the game where I have, say, a bishop and a

rook and you have a bishop and a knight, I am

said to be ahead the exchange.

9. A piece is said to be loose if it has no

defenders. It is hanging if it is exposed to

capture; you hang your queen if you leave it

where your opponent can take it for free. Thisalso is known as leaving a piece en prise.


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1.4.2. The Value of the Pieces.

This site assumes that you know how to play

chessin other words, how the pieces move.

If you know that much, you probably also

know which pieces are worth more than

which. But to be on the safe side, it is conven-tional to rank the pieces in the following order

of value, with points given to them as indi-

cated to make it easier to work out whether a

set of exchanges is favorable or unfavorable:

Queen = 9

Rook = 5

Bishop = 3

Knight = 3

Pawn = 1

1.4.3. Making the Site Easier to Read.

First of all, the site is best viewed at a resolu-

tion of at least 1024 x 768. Anything smaller

will force you to use a slider bar to read the

pages: no fun at all. My apologies to those

who don't have such an option, but the major-

ity of all monitors nowadays can achieve this,

and it makes for the best reading environ-

ment.

If the size of the type on this site, or the

spaces between the lines, arent to your liking,

you should be able to adjust them in the usual

way (hit CTRL and then use the scroll buttonon your mouse; or use the View menu on

your browser). If you are having trouble get-

ting satisfactory results this way, you may

find it useful to disable the sites automatic

formatting. On Microsofts Internet Explorer

you do this by going to Tools Internet Op-

tions Accessibility and then checking the

boxes to ignore the font styles or sizes (or

both) specified on web pages. Then set your

own font (still on the Internet Options page)

and play again with the browsers type sizesettings (under the View menu).

If you use Mozillas Firefox browser, you

likewise can fiddle with Tools Options

Fonts & Colors. Check "Always use my

fonts"; then set your preferred font elsewhere

in that same window. The Microsoft browser

produces slightly better results for some peo-

ple (sorry!), but it may depend on what sort ofmonitor you use.

If none of this helps, please let me know. I'm

still working on making the type easy to read

on every computer screen.

1.4.4. About the Dinosaurs.

This site is titled Predator at the Chessboard,and is decorated with dinosaurs; yet the dino-

saurs pictured are herbivores. Is this not a

contradiction of some sort? In fact it isn't; and

this, patient reader, for two reasons.

First, if you unexpectedly were to encounter a

Stegosaurus or a Triceratopssuch as, per-

haps, the handsome one shown to the left

you yourself would regard it as a decidedly

formidable predator, would you not? But sec-

ond and more to the point, the complaint

about the dining habits of the pictured dino-

saurs reflects, I say, a failure of perspective

and imagination; for you too hastily are as-

suming that they are the predators. Has it oc-

curred to you that they are the prey, and that

you are the Tyrannosaurus (or, perhaps, the

Allosaurus) intending to dine on them? That

is the sort of thinking this site means to en-

courage. After reading it for a while, situa-

tions that formerly caused you to react withdread and an instinct for defense and retreatwill instead inspire you to think by habit

aye, and with relishabout making a meal of

your opponent.

Either that, or plants make underrated prey;

but Herbivore at the Chessboarddidn't have

the same ring to it.

Onward.


20/248

1.4.5. Hard Copies.

Many readers of the site have written to ask if

the material it contains is available in hard

copy. Now it is; there are links at top of the

front page. These are oversized paperbacks,

and they contain every position and discus-sion that appears in the online version: over

700 pages in total, with over 1,000 illustra-

tions and commentaries. I hope they will be a

convenience to those who prefer reading

books to reading screens. Hardcover versions

are available, too; you can find them by

searching at www.lulu.com, which is where

the links on the front page will take you any-

way. At the lower left of the publisher's site,

you can ask to have the prices displayed in

pounds or euros if you prefer.

1.5 Acknowledgments and Bibliography.

I now wish to thank two gentlemen, each of

whom has lent a bit of his genius to this pro-

ject.

The first is Alon Cohen, the builder of this

site, pictured to the left. He is a man of sur-

passing energy, generosity, and creativity, and

I hope you will share my judgment that he has

done a beautiful as well as a functional job.

We collaborated on the design; anything you

dont like about it safely can be blamed on

me, while the good parts almost certainly

were his idea.

Alon Cohen

Secondin alphabetical order onlyis Tim

Feinstein, a wonderful chessplayer and terrific

lawyer who read the manuscript. He caught

many mistakes and made a lot of great sug-

gestions. (Many errors no doubt remain here

and there. He isnt responsible for them.) Tim

is a generous teacher from whom I havelearned much about the game, and I thank him

profusely. In everyday life he is far kinder

than he appears in this picture, which captures

him in a moment of characteristic brutality

toward an opponent. You wouldn't want to

cross him at the chessboard.

Tim Feinstein

Bibliography.

One of the goals of this project is to take

every problem that commonly arises in tacti-

cal play and illustrate its handling with a half

dozen or so progressive illustrations. To find

the positions needed for the purposeroughly

1,200 in allI drew on just about every

source I could find. I list them below, andthank their authors (and beg the pardon of any

I may have neglected to mention). I have

learned from all of them. There are a few

notes at the end about some particular titles.

Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book(1997)

Ault, The Chess Tutor(1975)

Bain, Chess Tactics for Students(1993)

Blokh, The Art of Combination(1994)


21/248

Blokh, Combinational Motifs(1998)

Blokh, 600 Combinations(2001)

Burgess, The Mammoth Book of Chess(1997)

Chandler,How to Beat Your Dad at Chess(1998)

Chernev, Combinations: The Heart of Chess

(1960)

Chernev,Logical Chess: Move by Move

(1957)

Chernev and Reinfeld, Winning Chess(1948)

Emms, The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book(2000)

Fischer et al.,Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

(1966)

Furst, Theme Artistry(1987)

Gillam, Winning At Chess(1994)

Gillam,Your Move

(1994)

Harding,Better Chess for Average Players

(1996)

Hays, Combination Challenge(1991)

Hays, Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors

(1994)

Horowitz,How to Win in the Chess Openings

(1951)

Horowitz and Reinfeld, First Book of Chess

(1952)

Ivaschenko, The Manual of Chess Combina-

tions(1997)

Koltanowski and Finkelstein, Checkmate!

(1998)

Koltanowski and Finkelstein, CheckmateStrategies(1999)

Lein and Archangelsky, Sharpen Your Tac-

tics!(1996)

Littlewood, Chess Tactics(1984)

Livshitz, Test Your Chess IQ(1981)

Neishtadt, Test Your Tactical Ability(1981)

Neishtadt, Your Move!(1990)

Palatnik and Alburt, Chess Tactics for the

Tournament Player(1995)

Polgar, Chess(1994)

Pongo, Tactical Targets in Chess(2000)

Purdy, The Search for Chess Perfection

(1997)

Reinfeld, 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate

(1955)

Reinfeld, 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and

Combinations(1955)

Renaud and Kahn,The Art of the Checkmate

(1953)

Robertie, Winning Chess Tactics(1996)

Seirawan and Silman, Winning Chess Tactics

(1995)

Tal, Tal-Botvinnik 1960(1970)

Vukovic,Art of Attack in Chess(1998 ed.)

Walker, Chess Combinations(1999)

Weeramantry,Best Lessons of a Chess Coach

(1993)

Wilson and Albertson, 303 Tricky Chess Tac-

tics(1999)

Znosko-Borovsky, The Art of Chess Combi-

nation(1959)


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Some positions also have appeared in Shelby

Lymans chess column in theBoston Globeor

in Rigas Chess magazine.

A few notes on these:

1. The books by Reinfeld and Hays probablyare the best collections of positions to solve if

you are looking for practice (a number of po-

sitions from those books are discussed here);

Livshitz and Gillam also are excellent for that

purpose, as is the book by Lein and Ar-

changelsky.

2. Among books that offer instruction in

words, I suggest Chernev and Reinfeld's Win-

ning Chess, Ault's The Chess Tutor, and Sei-

rawan and Silman's Winning Chess Tactics.(The first two may be hard to find, but are

worth the trouble.) Many of the others are

excellent, too, and I don't mean to slight any

of them by mentioning these three. Of course

those books fill a somewhat similar niche to

this site; for those who are reading this, they

are my competition. But I encourage you to

check them out and make comparisons. Dif-

ferent people learn better from different writ-

ers.

3. The titles by Renaud and Kahn and by

Chandler are terrific sources on mating pat-

terns; so are the Koltanowski and Finkelstein

books, which are overlooked. Again, many

positions in the "mating patterns" section of

this site are drawn from those sources.

4. For the reader looking to move on to the

study of strategy, I especially recommend

Chernev's Logical Chess and Nunn's Under-standing Chess, both of which walk youthrough chess games and explain the strategic

(as well as tactical) thinking behind the

moves. My other favorite titles on strategy are

Jeremy Silman's The Amateur's Mind,How to

Reassess Your Chess, and (perhaps most use-

ful of all) The Reassess Your Chess Work-

book, which is full of excellent examples and

discussion. Seirawan and Silman's Winning

Chess Strategiesis another fine overview you

may find helpful. Everyone's Second ChessBook by Dan Heisman also has a wealth of

tips on strategy as well as other topics; Heis-

man offers a number of good online resources

as well.

5. And for the reader simply looking for good,

lively writing about chess, I suggest checking

out any of the writings of C.J.S. Purdy, start-

ing with the one referenced above. He ismagnificent.

1.6 Chess in Literature.

Some Interesting Allusions to Chess.

Fielding,Joseph Andrews(1742):

But human life, as hath been discovered by

some great man or other (for I would by nomeans be understood to affect the honour of

making any such discovery), very much re-

sembles a game at chess; for as in the latter,

while a gamester is too attentive to secure

himself very strongly on one side the board,

he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the

other; so doth it often happen in life, and so

did it happen on this occasion; for whilst the

cautious constable with such wonderful sa-

gacity had possessed himself of the door, he

most unhappily forgot the window.

Fielding, Life of Jonathan Wild the Great

(1743):

How impossible for human prudence to fore-

see and guard against every circumvention! It

is even as a game of chess, where, while the

rook, or knight, or bishop, is busied forecast-

ing some great enterprize, a worthless pawn

exposes and disconcerts his scheme.

Boswell,Life of Johnson(1791):

There is one circumstance in Sir John's char-

acter of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly ap-

plicable to Johnson: He became so famous a

disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid

to dispute with him; and he finding his own

strength, could not stick to warn them in their

arguments to take heed to their answers, like a

perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in whichbutton he will give the venew, or like a cun-

ning chess-player that will appoint aforehand


23/248

with which pawn and in what place he will

give the mate.

Dickens,Bleak House(1853):

He is clear that every such person wants to

depose him. If he be ever asked how, why,when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and

shakes his head. On the strength of these pro-

found views, he in the most ingenious manner

takes infinite pains to counterplot when there

is no plot, and plays the deepest games of

chess without any adversary.

James, The Figure in the Carpet (1896):

The figures on the chessboard were still the

passions and jealousies and superstitions andstupidities of man, and their position with

regard to each other, at any given moment,

could be of interest only to the grim, invisible

fates who played the game who sat, through

the ages, bow-backed over the table.

Churchill, The Peoples Rights(1909):

Moves are made upon the scientific and stra-

tegic boards, advantages are gained by me-

chanical means, as a result of which scores of

millions of men become incapable of further

resistance, or judge themselves incapable of

further resistance, and a fearful game of chess

proceeds from check to mate by which the

unhappy players seem to be inexorably

bound.

Roosevelt, The Conditions of Success(1910):

There are exceptional cases, of course, wherethere is a man who can do just one thing, such

as a man who can play a dozen games of

chess or juggle with four rows of figures at

onceand as a rule he can do nothing else.

Chesterton, The Maniac(1908):

Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologi-

cally unreliable; and generally there is a

vague association between wreathing laurels

in your hair and sticking straws in it. Factsand history utterly contradict this view. Most

of the very great poets have been not only

sane, but extremely business-like; and if

Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was

because he was much the safest man to hold

them. Imagination does not breed insanity.

Exactly what does breed insanity is reason.

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.

Stoker,Dracula(1897):

So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It

has given us opportunity to cry 'check' in

some ways in this chess game, which we play

for the stake of human souls.

Orwell,Homage to Catalonia(1938):

What purpose is served by saying that men

like Maxton are in Fascist pay? Only the pur-pose of making serious discussion impossible.

It is as though in the middle of a chess tour-

nament one competitor should suddenly begin

screaming that the other is guilty of arson or

bigamy. The point that is really at issue re-

mains untouched.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of

the Breakfast Table(1858):

The whole force of conversation depends on

how much you can take for granted. Vulgar

chess-players have to play their game out;

nothing short of the brutality of an actual

checkmate satisfies their dull apprehensions.

But look at two masters of that noble game!

White stands well enough, so far as you can

see; but Red says, Mate in six moves;White

looks,nods;the game is over. Just so in

talking with first-rate men; especially when

they are good-natured and expansive, as theyare apt to be at table.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Poet at the

Breakfast Table (1872):

Men's minds are like the pieces on a chess-

board in their way of moving. One mind

creeps from the square it is on to the next,

straight forward, like the pawns. Another

sticks close to its own line of thought and

follows it as far as it goes, with no heed forothers' opinions, as the bishop sweeps the

board in the line of his own color. And an-


24/248

other class of minds break through everything

that lies before them, ride over argument and

opposition, and go to the end of the board,

like the castle. But there is still another sort of

intellect which is very apt to jump over the

thought that stands next and come down in

the unexpected way of the knight. But thatsame knight, as the chess manuals will show

you, will contrive to get on to every square of

the board in a pretty series of moves that

looks like a pattern of embroidery, and so

these zigzagging minds like the Master's, and

I suppose my own is something like it, will

sooner or later get back to the square next the

one they started from.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,Ralph Waldo

Emerson (1891):

Inherited qualities move along their several

paths not unlike the pieces in the game of

chess. Sometimes the character of the son can

be traced directly to that of the father or of the

mother, as the pawn's move carries him from

one square to the next. Sometimes a series of

distinguished fathers follows in a line, or a

succession of superior mothers, as the black

or white bishop sweeps the board on his own

color. Sometimes the distinguishing charac-

ters pass from one sex to the other indiffer-

ently, as the castle strides over the black and

white squares. Sometimes an uncle or aunt

lives over again in a nephew or niece, as if the

knight's move were repeated on the squares of

human individuality. It is not impossible,

then, that some of the qualities we mark in

Emerson may have come from the remoteancestor whose name figures with distinction

in the early history of New England.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Over the Tea-

cups (1890):

Life is a very different sort of game. It is a

game of chess, and not of solitaire, nor even

of checkers. The men are not all pawns, but

you have your knights, bishops, rooks,yes,

your king and queen,to be provided for.

Not with these names, of course, but all look-

ing for their proper places, and having theirown laws and modes of action. You can play

solitaire with the members of your own fam-

ily for pegs, if you like, and if none of them

rebel. You can play checkers with a little

community of meek, like-minded people. But

when it comes to the handling of a great state,

you will find that nature has emptied a box of

chessmen before you, and you must play withthem so as to give each its proper move, or

sweep them off the board, and come back to

the homely game such as I used to see played

with beans and kernels of corn on squares

marked upon the back of the kitchen bellows.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Guardian

Angel (1867):

We often move to the objects of supreme cu-

riosity or desire, not in the lines of castle orbishop on the chess-board, but with the

knight's zigzag, at first in the wrong direction,

making believe to ourselves we are not after

the thing coveted.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Guardian

Angel(1867):

With most men life is like backgammon, half

skill, and half luck, but with him it was like

chess. He never pushed a pawn without reck-

oning the cost, and when his mind was least

busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves

ahead of the game as it was standing.


25/248

Chap

The Doubl

er 2:

Atta


26/248


27/248

2.1.The Knight Fork.

2.1.1Introduction.

Dg001:Black to move

Dg001: We begin our study of tactics withdouble attacks, or forks: moves that attack

two enemy targets at once.

And we begin our study of double attacks

with knight forks. In the skeletal diagram to

the left, Whites knight has forked Blacks

king and rook; in other words, it attacks them

at the same time.

Why start with the knight? Because it is an

especially vicious and common forking tool.

First, it can threaten a wide range of targets.

The knight is roughly comparable in value to

a bishop, and so is less valuable than a rook or

queen; thus a knight not only can attack any

unprotected (or loose) enemy pieces but

also can be exchanged favorably for enemy

queens and rooks regardless of whether they

have protection. Second, the knights unique,

non-straight pattern of movement creates two

advantages: it allows a knight to attack otherpieces without fear of being captured by

them; and it enables a knight to make jumps

and deliver threats that are surprising to the

eye and so are easy to overlook.

To spot possible knight forks you will want to

become habitually aware of the relationships

between your knights and your opponents

pieces (and between his knights and your

pieces), especially as the knight progresses up

the board. Every rank a knight moves forwardtends to bring it closer to forking targets, es-

pecially the king; notice that once your knight

reaches its fourth rank, it can attack your op-

ponents back rank, and often his king, in one

move (thus in the diagram to the left, Whites

knight might have been on e4 a move ear-

lierseemingly pretty far from Black's king).

Hence the strategic importance of planting

knights on central and advanced squares, andthe tactical importance of constantly looking

for forks your knight might be able to deliver

once it is properly developed.

The difficulty in fashioning a fork, of course,

is that no matter where your knight sits you

rarely will find a fork lying one move away

against a decent player. Leaving two pieces to

be forked by a knight on the next move is a

blunder almost as bad as leaving a piece

hanging outright. Forks have to be manufac-tured; the challenge is to see when one lies a

few steps away. Fortunately knight forks a

few steps away come in a finite number of

types that you can learn to search for system-

atically and, with practice, recognize quickly.

Such situations can be sorted into two general

types.

Dg002: White to move

Dg002: First, sometimes two of your oppo-

nents pieces sit on squares that can be forked

with one move of your knight, but there is

some obstacle to your taking advantage of

this; most commonly, the square your knight

needs to reachcall it the forking square

is defended by your opponent (the diagram to

the left shows such a case, again in skeletal

form; White would like to play the fork Nf6+,

but he can't; the f6 square is defended by a

pawn). We will refer to these as cases whereyou have a potential forka move that

amounts to a fork on its face, but that needs to


28/248

be perfected by overcoming some defensive

measure that your opponent has in place. In a

moment we will catalogue those defensive

measures and how to deal with them.


Dg003: Second, sometimes you will not have

even a potential fork because your opponents

pieces are not arranged for it; there are no two

enemy pieces that your knight can attack inone move. Thus in the diagram to the left,

White cannot deliver a fork, but he could if he

were able to get Blacks king to move over a

square onto g8. In cases like this it sometimes

is possible to draw enemy pieces onto fork-

able squares with some forcing movesmost

often with a check or two. Later we will con-sider the clues that such possibilities for ma-

nipulation may exist and how they can be

brought to fruition.

2.1.2. Seeing Potential Forks.


Dg004: Let's begin with ways of perfecting

potential forksin other words, cases where

your opponent starts with two pieces that at

least are on forkable squares. The first impor-

tant thing is to see all such forks in the first

place. It helps to start by learning to spot all

of a knights possible moves at a glance. For

this purpose you will want a clear mental pic-

ture of the ring of eight squares that are the

maximum to which a well-placed knight canmove. In the diagram on the left, the White

circles show squares where the White knight

can jump, and the Black circles show squares

where the horribly positioned Black knight

can jump. Now you can understand why hav-

ing your knight near the edge of the board

generally is bad policy: it cant reachand

thus cant controlmany squares from there.

Study these visual patterns so that seeing a

knights moves from any position comes eas-

ily to you.

Dg005:Black to move

Dg005: Now to the matter of spotting knight

forksin particular. You may be used to certain

forking patterns: your opponents king and

rook are a square apart on his back rank, in-

viting you to fork them. But it takes more care

never to overlook a potential fork when the

board is crowded and the pieces to be forked

are not lined up so neatly on the same row.

Consider the opportunities here for Blacks

knight on b7. By moving to c5 it can fork four

White pieces (find them); by moving to d6 it

can fork two pieces. Whether either of these

forks "work" is another question (the squares

the knights need are guarded, though Black

has possible replies, etc.), but don't worry

about that now. It's just an exercise in geome-

try: we want to see everyplace where two

White pieces are in a forkable position. See-ing only the obvious forking candidates is no

good, and wont lead to tactical magic. If they


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are obvious your opponent can see them, too,

and can avoid them. You want to see all of

the possibilities every time they exist.

Notice an important feature of the knight's

movements: every time a knight moves it

lands on a different colored square. This canbe used to make your searching more effi-

cient. It means that two pieces can be forked

by a knight only if they are on squares of the

same color; it means that they only can be

forked by a knight that lands on a square of

the oppositecolor; and it therefore means that

if a knight is in position to deliver a fork on

its next move, the knight and its targets must

all then be sitting on squares of the same

color. This is a valuable idea; consider it a

law of knight forks.

To state the practical implication plainly, one

way to build your ability to see all the poten-

tial knight forks on the board is to look for

any two pieces of your opponents that are on

squares of the same color as the square where

your knight sits. If, as in this case, your knight

is on a light square, scan the board for pieces

of your opponents also on light squares. Can

any two of them be forked by your knight?

This only takes a moment; you arent yet ana-

lyzing whether any of the forks would work,

but just are reviewing the board visually for

simple patternsa color scan. Sometimes this

will be a helpful way to alert yourself to fork-

ing opportunities; in other positions it will be

more efficient just to look directly at your

knight moves without reference to square

color. Experiment.


Dg006: As you do your scanning you will

discover certain additional laws of knight

moves that will become part of your visual

vocabulary. An important example is that two

pieces can't be forked if they are on the same

diagonal with one square between them. Thus

the Black king and queen in the diagram tothe left are on squares of the same color, but

there is nosquare from which a knight would

be able to attack them both. This is a familiar

pattern, and when you see it you will not need

to pause to think about whether a knight fork

is in the immediate offing; the sight of it will

be self-explanatory, and you will move on.

Similarly, if your knight is on the same di-

agonal as an enemy piece and separated from

it by one square, the knight is three movesaway from being able to attack the piece.

Thus in the diagram the White knight is three

moves from being able to attack the Black

king; it must move, say, to e4, then to g5, then

to e6.

Another useful thing to know is that a knight

may be able to attack an enemy target two

different waysbut never more than two. In

the diagram, for example, White's knight can

attack the Black rook by moving to e4 or d5

(and only the latter move creates a fork). This

is useful to remember because the first attack-

ing idea you see with your knight may turn

out not to be the best oneeven against the

same enemy piece.

Practice broad-mindedness when you scan for

forking prospects. It is especially important

not to dismiss a possible fork automatically,

perhaps half-consciously, when you noticethat the square your knight needs is protected

by a pawn, or when you see that the fork

would involve your opponents king on the

one hand but a knight or protected pawn on

the other. In the latter case you might quickly

imagine that if you tried the fork the enemy

would move his king and the pawn would not

be worth taking, and so write off the forking

prospect without taking it seriously. But that

train of thought is premature; great combina-

tions often look just that way at first. Youwant to separate the creativeprocess of seeing

that the geometry is there for a fork from the


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editingprocess of analyzing whether the fork

can be made profitable. Much of the rest of

this chapter is devoted to the editing process:

how to take potential forks that look defective

and turn them into tactical shots that work.

But all along you also want to build the visual

habit of noticing every time your knight canattack two sensitive points at once, no matter

how implausible the attack looks at first.

2.1.3. The Pinned Guard.

When you see a possible knight fork, a natural

first question is whether the square your

knight needs is protected by any of your op-

ponents pieces. If it is, your attention turns tothe guard of the square and whether you can

get rid of itor whether you really need to

get rid of it. Perhaps you don't; maybe the

protection that the piece appears to offer is an

illusion, as is the case if the guard is pinned.

A piece is pinned if it can't move without ex-

posing the king or another valuable piece to

attack. Indeed, a piece that screens its own

king from attack is subject to an absolute

pin and so cannot legally move. We will study

pins in detail in later chapters, but this much

is enough to help you see that sometimes a

square that looks well-defended really isn't.

Dg007:Black to move

Dg007: So here is our method in this section:

consider the piece that protects the square you

want to occupywe can call it the guard of

the forking squareand see what other pieces

may be on the same line with it and thus ex-posed to attack if it moves. Start with the dia-

gram. There is a knight fork waiting for Black

with Nf2; the placement of White's king and

queen with three squares between them on the

first rank is a classic setup for a double attack.

If that isn't yet obvious to you, notice that

your knight is on a light square and that

White's king and queen (not to mention sev-

eral other pieces) are on light squares as well,which encourages a look at whether you can

fork any of them. Having found Nf2 one way

or another, ask: is f2 protected? It seems to

be, by the White rook at f3; so study the rook

more carefully. It's on the same line with its

king, and with your queen. This means that if

the rook moves it will expose its king to at-

tackwhich is to say that the rook can't le-

gally move at all. So Nf2+ can be played with

impunity, and it wins the queen after White

moves his king.


Dg008: Our modus operandi is to look for

double attacks with the knight and ask

whether they can be made to work. This time

you're playing the White pieces. Notice first

here that your knight is on a dark square; now

look for Black pieces also on dark squares.

You find the Black rook and king, and ask

whether they can be forked. They can, with

Nd5+. Now ask: Is d5 protected? Yes, by the

pawn at c6. But before worrying further you

examine the pawn to see if it is constrained. It

is; its pinned to the king by the White rook at

a6. So Nd5+ is safe, and it forks and wins the

Black rook. This position is structurally about

the same as the previous one.

Dg009: Whites most advanced knight (gen-

erally the one you want to examine first) is ona light square. Again you might just look for

knight moves, or you might look for forking


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candidates by scanning for Black pieces also

on light squares, and find manyboth of his

knights, one of his bishops, one of his rooks,

and his king.


Nd6+ forks Blacks king and b7 bishop; the

bishop is unprotectedis loosemaking it

a good target. The next question is whether

the square you need (d6) is protected. It is, by

Blacks bishop at e7. But then consider how

the board would look if the bishop moved to

d6 to take the knight. See that Blacks queen

would then be taken by Whites bishop at g5;

in other words, Blacks bishop is pinned to his

queen. Nd6+ thus wins Blacks b7 bishop

without fanfare.

There is another point to consider here. You

want to think not just about what your tactical

moves will achieve in the way of material

gains, but also about how the board will look

after the sequence you want to play. This

point applies to all tactical operations; we will

encounter it constantly. The important point

here involves the work that your e4 knight is

doing before it is sent off to inflict a fork. It's

guarding the bishop on g5. To be more pre-

cise, at the start of the pictured position the

bishop is protected twice (by Whites two

knights) and attacked twice (by Blacks

bishop and the queen behind it). The bishop

therefore was safe: if Black captured it, White

would recapture; if Black captured again,

White would recapture again. But when

White sends his knight off from e4 to d6, the

bishop loses one of its guards. While this

doesnt matter so long as White is keepingBlack busy with checks, notice the hazard that

arises once White plays NxB at the end of the

sequence. His bishop back on g5 now is at-

tacked twice and defended only once. Does he

lose it? Nobut only because once his knight

ends up on b7, it attacks Blacks queen. Now

if Black plays BxB, White has NxQ. Black

therefore needs to spend his next move taking

his queen out of danger, and Whites forkworks after all. The general lesson: be mind-

ful of the defensive work your pieces are do-

ing before you send them off to attack.

Dg010:Black to move

Dg010: Blacks knight is on a dark square. So

are several of Whites pieces, most usefully

his king and e1 rook, which can be forked

from f3. But notice as well that f3 appears to

be protected by the rook on e3. So examinethe rook and its freedom of movement, play-

ing through its move and what would thenbe

possible in your minds eye. If 1Nxf3+; 2.

RxNand then Black can play RxRe1.

Whites queen wouldn't then be able to recap-

ture at e1 because Black would have a second

rook still trained on the square. The point:

White's rook on e3 is pinnednot to its king,

but to the other rook at e1. One way or an-

other Black gains a pawn and the exchange.

(Capturing a rook in return for a bishop or

knight is known generally as winning the

exchange.)

Dg011: Here is an important twist. Blacks

most advanced knight is on a dark square. So

are Whites queen, king, and rook, with the

latter two pieces subject to a fork at c2. But c2

appears to be protected by Whites queen.


32/248

Dg011:Black to move

The queen is not constrained by a pinyet.

But examine the fork by actually playing it in

your minds eye, imagining the knight on c2

and not on b4. When you so imagine a move

or exchange, pay attention to what lines areopened and closed by it and what conse-

quences may followespecially new pins and

new possible checks.

In this case, once the knight moves the White

queen is pinned by Blacks queen. So play

goes 1. Nc2+; 2. Kf1, QxQ (without this

intermediate step, all is lost; do you see

why?); 3. NxQ, NxR. This time the lesson is

that you do not just ask whether the trouble-

some piece currently is pinned; you ask, too,whether it would be pinned if you made the

forking move.


Dg012: A similar problem. Whites knight is

on a dark square. So are Blacks king and

queen. A fork is indicated at e6. The square

appears to be protected by the pawn at d7, so

look more closely; imagine the knight moved,and observe that the pawn thenwill be pinned

by Whites queen. Ne6+ thus wins the queen

without further ado.

Dg013: With Whites knight and Blacks king

and queen all on light squares, conditions

seem right for a fork on f6. Is the square pro-

tected? Yes, by the Black bishop on e7. IfWhite tries to first capture it with his own

bishop, then Black recaptures with his queen

and the fork is ruined.


But again the trick is to imagine the fork,

mentally placing the knight on f6 and not on

e4. Then you can see that once the knight

moves, the Black bishop becomes pinned to

Blacks queen by Whites queenanotherdiscovered pin. The point repeats: dont just

ask whether moves are possible; picture

moves, visualize whatever countermoves

seem to make them impossible, and ask what

would then be possible if the countermoves

were made.

2.1.4.Exchanging Away the Guard.

Now lets assume an enemy piece guards the

square your knight needs, and it isn't pinned.

Perhaps you nevertheless can get rid of it.

Sometimes the guardian of the forking square

may be captured: you can take it, and the

piece that recaptures yours no longer will pro-

tect against the fork.

Dg014: The position of Blacks king and rook

make the idea for White clear enough: Nf7+.But f7 is protected by Blacks knight. Ask if it

can be captured, and see that it can bewith


33/248

Whites rook. After playing RxN, White loses

the rook to f6xR; but he regains it with the

fork Nf7+, capturing Blacks rook next move

and leaving White a knight to the good.


Remember when you play a capture that your

opponent may not be required to recapture.

Usually that will be his choice, but in princi-

ple he also may be able to make some other

capture or counterthreat of his own. Here

Black can reply to Whites RxN by playing

RxN himself. Doesn't this end the forking

threat? It does, but at a prohibitive price; for

then White has Re8#a classic back rankmate that takes advantage of the way Black's

king is stuck in the corner. At the outset of the

position the Black rook on d8 is the only

piece protecting against this mating threat, so

it can't afford to leave its post. We will study

back rank mates in detail at various points

later in this project (they get a section to

themselves toward the end).


Dg015: Again one of Whites knights is pretty

far advanced up the board on f5; any knight

planted on the fourth or fifth rank is a con-

stant forking threat. So White does a quick

scan for forks and observes that the knight is

on a light square along with Blacks king and

queen

which can be forked with Ne7+. Theneeded square is protected by one piece: the

bishop on d6, but White can take out the

bishop with his rook now on d1. So White

picks up a piece, and if Black recaptures

White can follow up with the fork: 1. RxB,

c7xR; 2. Ne7+.


Dg016: The thought process is identical:

White examines his knights moves, or per-haps does a color scan and notices that his

knight and Blacks king and queen all are on

dark squares; one way or another there is a

potential fork in Nd7+. The hindrance is that

the bishop at c8 protects the needed square.

Can White capture the bishop? Yes, with his

queena sacrifice worth making for the fork

that follows. So White picks up a piece, and if

Black recaptures White can follow up with

the fork: 1. RxB, c7xR; 2. Ne7+.



34/248

Dg017: Your most advanced knight is on a

light square, as are Blacks king and queen;

there is a potential fork at e7. Ask if the

square is safe, and see that it is guarded by the

bishop at d6. Now look for pieces you can use

to attack the bishop and notice the queen at

d1

but also the knight at c4. It is importantto notice both. The question is not do you

have a piece attacking X? Its how many of

your piecespluralattack X? You don't

want to sacrifice your queen when a knight

will do, especially as it would make the se-

quence a wash, Correct is 1. NxB; c7xN; 2.

Ne7+.


Dg018: The pattern repeats. White can forkthree Black pieces with Ne6+. The only diffi-

culty is the pawn at f7 that guards the needed

square. There are various things one can do

about such problems. The most obvious is

simply to capture the pawn if you can, so here

it goes 1. Rxf7, RxR, and now the pawn has

been replaced by a piece that can't protect the

e6 square. True, White sacrificed a rook to the

cause; but now Ne6+ wins the queen. And

then after Black recaptures RxN, White picks

up a pawn that has been left loose by the se-

quence: Qxg6. White ends up trading a knight

and a rook for a queen and two pawns.

You might imagine that the g6 pawn could be

protected by Black's king, which (on this the-

ory) would have escaped the knight fork by

moving to f6. But if Black does move his king

there, White mates in three moves. It starts

with Nc3-d5+. Black has no good replies; if

he plays BxNd5, for example, White hasRf1+. This forces Black to play KxNe6. Now

White replies e4xBd5#.

When you capture the f7 pawn at the begin-

ning, you should not assume that your oppo-

nent necessarily has to recapture the way you

would like. He might prefer to let the pawn go

rather than play into your hands; it depends

on the quality of his alternatives. Here Black

has the option of replying to Rxf7+ with Kg8,which loses the pawn but also takes the king

out of forking range. What happens next?

Imagine the board with Whites rook on f7

and Blacks king on g8, and you should see

that White then has an easy capture of a piece

with RxN: the rook has protection from the

knight on g5, and so cannot be recaptured by

Blacks king.


Dg019: The usual color scan reveals a poten-

tial knight fork to be had at d6, but the square

is protected.How many times?Twiceby the

bishop at f8 and the knight at f7; be sure to

account for all the guards, not just the first

you notice. Fortunately White has bishops

attacking each of the two bothersome pieces,

but there still is a complication: when Whites

bishops take Blacks bishop and knight, Black

will use his king to recapture, and the king issupposed to be one of the pieces in the fork.

Will its recaptures ruin the forking opportu-

nity? Not necessarily;

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