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What on Earth is a Tactic?

Glad you asked that question. Imagine this. You're playing an amazing game and you see that your opponent will lose his queen if only you play this next move. With a smile on your face you graciously pick up your queen and place it on another square. You look up at your opponent to see his frown. But it seems that he doesn't have a frown, but a very large smile. You don't know many people who smile when they lose their queen, so you decide that something fishy is up. Now, he picks up his knight and places it on a square which attacks your queen...and then calls out check because he attacks your kings also! You move your king because you have to play by the rules and then watch your opponent's grin as he removes your queen from the game. What could cause this? That's right, good old tactics. A tactic is defined as a move which takes advantage of short-term opportunities in the position. They can make your position better, or destroy your opponent's position to make yours look better. :) This section on tactics is a series of pages long because it takes quite a while to get the hang of them. First we'll start out with the basics and then the advanced stuff, which although is hard, I'm sure you'll be much more satisfied with yourself if you solve them. I only ask one thing of you as you work through this, and that's to take your time! It doesn't matter if a puzzle takes you 3 minutes or 30 minutes, or even longer. If you solve it by yourself you really feel great when you do, and it sort of balances out all the frustration you have while solving it :) Good luck!

Ok, We've Got Forks, But Where Are the Spoons?

Welcome to your first lesson on tactics! This tactic is pretty easy to understand, although they lurk all over the place and you must keep a watchful eye for them, both for ones to play on your opponent, and ones that might be played on you! A fork, put simply, is an attack by one of a player's pieces on two of his opponent's pieces simultaneusly on the same move. While if you attack one piece, it is easy to understand that the opponent can defend, but with a fork, you can defend one piece but it usually becomes quite difficult to defend both and thus one will be lost. Let's take a look at a fork below.

In the above diagram, the white rook forks bishop and knight. With black to move, he can try as he might, he cannot save one of the pieces, thus white will win material. Let's take a look at another example.

This example shows a position much more complicated than anything we've taken a look at so far. You must remember how all the pieces move in order to solve it. White seems to think that he faces defeat. He is down a pawn and as we know that may turn into a queen later on which will most definitely mean he has lost. Bu, instead of giving up, he sees a fiendishly good move which will solve all his problems. With 1. Rb7+ white forks the knight and king. Black will have to move his king and then the knight will be lost with 1. ... Kc6 Rxa7 and white has won the game.

Pretty cool stuff eh? By now you may be thinking that rooks are the only pieces that can perform a fork. Well, you clever litle devil, if you thought that you're absolutely and completely wrong. In fact, every one of the pieces in your army can perform a fork, including the little ol' pawn. Here are a few examples showing each of the piece's forking abilities.

A pawn forks two knights with 1. c4.

A bishop forks two rooks with 1. ... Bf3.

A queen forks king and rook with 1. Qb4+.

A king...yes...a king, forks knight and rook with 1. ... Kc3.

Finally, a knight, aka, Mr. Fork (because it's so well-suited for the job) forks king and rook with 1. ... Nc3+.

But wait a minute, you might ask, are forks invincible? After you get into a fork, is there anyway to get out of it to avoid a loss of material/position? Guess what, there is! Forks aren't invicible. Below is an example of how a fork fails.

White thinks that he's really smart and plays 1. Ne6, forking the two rooks. But black has a surprise in store. He plays 1. ... Rc1+. Now white is in check, he must move his king and now black has time to move his other rook to safety. See if you can think of a few other ways that you could get out of a fork. Here's a few to get you started: Attacking the queen, or a mre valuable piece than the one being forked, threatening checkmate so the opponent must deal with it instead, etc.

Now, it's your turn. I've prepared a few examples for you to try on your own. Most come from my own games so that you can see ow they really occurin actual situatons. To get a hint click on the button labeled hint for each puzzle and for the answer, click the button labeled solution for each puzzle. The answer or hint will appear in a small window the pops up. Don't cheat now. If you get frustrated take a hint, but you won't get anything out of them if you don't try. Good luck!

WHITE: "Drulid"
BLACK: Cone, J
DATE: 5.19.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 4. Be3

WHITE: "Metu Neter"
BLACK: Cone, J
DATE: 5.20.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 13. Bh6

WHITE: Cone, J
BLACK: "Diosdado"
DATE: 5.26.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 38. ... Ke7

WHITE: Cone, J
BLACK: "warval"
DATE: 5.23.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 30. ... Bc4

WHITE: Cone, J
BLACK: "warval"
DATE: 5.23.97
EVENT: Internet Game - Same as above.
LAST MOVE: 39. ... Rxg7
White to play.

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