Tactical Motifs

Tactical Motifs

Advanced Pawn
The threat of pawn promotion posed by an advanced pawn is often seen at the heart of tactical possibilites. Resources required to prevent the promotion are not available to help elsewhere on the board and this can be exploited to create tactical opportunities.

Attraction
Attraction occurs when a player entices a piece to a square (often using a sacrifice) where it will later come under attack. This can sometimes also be called a Decoy tactic, although some users apply that to luring a piece AWAY from a square instead of towards one.

Avoiding Perpetual
A tactical line where the correct move sequence prevents the opponent from giving perpetual check.

Avoiding Stalemate
A tactical line where the correct move sequence requires you to avoid stalemating the opponent king.

Back Rank Mate
Back rank mate occurs when the opponent mates a king that is trapped on the back rank by it's own pawns and has no pieces to interpose or take the opponent's attacking piece (usually a rook or queen).

Blocking
Blocking occurs where one piece is forced to a position where it blocks the path of another. The difference between Blocking and Interference is that interference blocks the impact of one piece on another piece or square, but blocking tactics block the previously available escape path of a piece.

Capturing Defender
The player captures an opponent piece that was previously defending a piece or square, leading to the previously defended piece or square to come under attack. This is often called removing defender, but to avoid overlap with the distraction motif (where the defender is removed by distracting it away rather than taking it), the more specific, "Capturing Defender" is used instead.

Clearance
Clearance comes in two forms, the first is where a player moves one of their own pieces to clear a square for another of their pieces. The second form of clearance occurs when one player forces a piece away from a diagonal, rank or file (often using a sacrifice) to make way for another piece to utilise or attack the cleared path. Note that clearances where the player clears a piece to make way for a piece behind it to attack another square or piece is sometimes referred to as clearance, however on Chess Tempo these should be considered discovered attacks.

Coercion
Coercion occurs when a player forces a piece to a square where it will later come under attack. This tag is designed to differentiate two situations where the attraction tag has been applied in the past. The Attraction tag is to be used where the piece is attracted to a square via a sacrifice. The Coercion tag is to be used when the piece is forced to the square without a sacrifice.

Counting
A tactic occurring due to a mistake in evaluating the material balance arising after a series of takes.

Desperado
A situation in which both sides have a piece (or pieces) hanging, and you capture material with your hanging piece in order to gain a more favourable material balance at the end of the sequence of captures.

Defensive Move
The opponent has a serious threat, and you must meet it in the correct manner. Other methods of meeting the threat do not win.

Discovered Attack
A discovered attack occurs when a player moves a piece which opens up an attack that was previously blocked by the moving piece. This attack may be on either another piece or an important square.

Distraction
Distraction (sometimes called deflection) involves forcing the opponent to move a piece that was previously guarding important squares or pieces.

Double Check
A move that checks the opponent king with two pieces at the same time. These will involve a Discovered Attack, and it is acceptable to use both tags on the problem.

Exposed King
This is not really a tactical motif as such, but is used to explain positions where mate or other tactics are possible due to the exposed nature of the opponents king. For this tag to apply, the king should be exposed at the start of the problem, rather than being exposed during the problem. It should not be applied where the exposed nature of the king has no impact on the tactical outcome.

Fork/Double Attack
Forks/Double attacks occur when one player's piece attacks multiple opponent pieces (or important squares). The opponent can't counter all threats so loses material. This tag is only to be used where a single piece attacks multiple opponent pieces, it is not be used in discovered attack situations where one piece moves to attack another piece, while creating a discovered attack from a second piece.

Hanging Piece
This is not a real tactical motif. It describes the initial position of a problem in which the opponent has left a piece to be taken for free, or has left a more valuable piece to be taken by a piece of lesser value. The tag should not be used when a piece is hanging after some other tactical motif has been applied, such as a Fork or Skewer or Pin.

Interference
The player cuts the line between an opponent bishop, rook or queen and a square or piece it is defending by either interposing one of the player's pieces, or forcing the opponent to interpose their own piece. The difference between this and blocking is that Interference blocks the impact of one piece on another piece or square, but blocking tactics block the escape of a piece.

Overloading
Overloading occurs when a defensive piece is required to protect more than one piece or square at a time, but can only perform one of the defensive tasks adequately. Overloading tactics almost always include a distraction tactic.

Mate Threat
The opponent loses material due to having to protect their king from being mated. This should not be applied to problems where the king is actually mated, and should not apply to weak back rank problems which are a special case of this motif.

Pin
A pin occurs when an attacked piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable piece or square behind it to attack.

Quiet Move
A move which is not forcing, i.e. a move which does not directly attack or capture an enemy piece. In tactics problems, a quiet move is often used to control important squares or guard your own pieces from future capture, before launching a more direct attack in subsequent moves.

Sacrifice
A sacrifice is a move where the player deliberately loses a piece to gain advantage in subsequent moves. Tactical sacrifices usually result in an imminent material gain. Sacrifices are often used in combination with other tactical motifs.

Simplification
Simplification occurs when a player decides to swap material to emphasise an advantage already gained. Often used tactically in the endgame to assist in pawn promotion.

Skewer
The player attacks a piece of the opponent, which cannot move without exposing a less valuable square or piece behind it to attack. The front piece usually moves, allowing the piece behind it to be captured.

Smother
A smother occurs when a piece is unable to escape an attack due to being hemmed in by their own pieces. The term is usually applied to the situation where a knight mates a king trapped behind it's pawns and hemmed in by a Rook or other piece.

Trapped Piece
A piece is trapped when it has no safe squares to escape to thus making it highly susceptible to capture. While mated kings are technically trapped, this tag should only be applied to non-mate situations.

Unpinning
Removing a pin on a piece so it can be used for tactical advantage.

Unsound Sacrifice
A sacrifice made by the opponent on the false assumption that they will later get the material back. Unsound Sacrifice is often the reason for a Hanging Piece problem, and it is acceptable to use both tags in that situation.

Weak Back Rank
In some situations back rank mate might not be possible , but the threat of a bank rank mate may be enough for a player to win material.

X-Ray Attack
An X-Ray attack occurs when one piece attacks a square or piece through another piece. Note that this is not the same as a skewer as the relative value of the piece being attacked through is irrelevant.

Zugzwang
Zugzwang (a German word meaning compulsion to move) refers to the situation where a player would prefer not to make a move as all legal moves would make the player's position worse.

Zwischenzug
Zwischenzug (a German word for between move or intermediate move) refers to a tactic where the player postpones an anticipated move in order to make a forcing intermediate move (the 'zwischenzug'), which results in the anticipated move being stronger when executed. The intermediate move is often overlooked by the opponent.