Tactics are a short forcing sequence of moves that wins material or gives mate. Unlike strategy, they can be calculated exactly: either the motif is there or it is not.
For a beginner this is the main subject, and here is why. Up to a certain level, games end not because somebody placed their pieces better but because somebody hung their queen. Studying opening subtleties while dropping a piece every ten moves is time wasted.
The one-question rule
After every move your opponent makes, ask yourself one question: “what is he threatening to do now”. That question alone removes more than half of all blunders.
One piece attacks two or more at the same time. The opponent saves one, you take the other.
How to spot them: look at your own pieces standing on squares of the same colour a knight's move apart, and at any two pieces on the same line. Check separately the squares your opponent's knight can jump to with check.
A piece cannot move because something more valuable stands behind it. This works only for long-range pieces: the queen, the rook and the bishop.
A pinned piece effectively stops defending anything - that is the most important consequence. The classic motif: pin the defender and attack what it was defending a second time.
What to do if you are the one being pinned: do not panic and do not start trading everything off. Usually it helps to move the king or the queen off the line, bring another defender to the pinned piece, or trade off the piece doing the pinning.
Two related motifs that beginners often confuse with each other and with the fork.
The double check is worth remembering separately: it is what the most beautiful mating combinations are built on, including the smothered mate.
Motifs for making an opponent's piece end up somewhere they do not want it.
What all four have in common: look for your opponent's defended pieces and ask exactly who is defending them. Tactics most often start with the answer to that question.
A working habit before every move: check all the checks, all the captures and all the attacks - your own first, then the opponent's replies. It takes about twenty seconds and saves you a piece a game.
And above all - play. Tactics spotted in a puzzle and tactics spotted at the board with the clock ticking are different skills. The second one is trained only by tournaments - a tournament for beginners.
One piece attacking two or more at the same time. The opponent can only save one of them. A fork is most often made by a knight or a pawn, but any piece can make one, the king included.
A fork is an attack on two pieces at once. A pin is a situation where a piece cannot move because something more valuable stands behind it. Only long-range pieces pin: the queen, the rook and the bishop.
A check given by two pieces at once: one moves off a line and opens a check from another, while attacking the king itself. You cannot block it or capture the attacker - a king move is compulsory.
Before every move, check all the checks, captures and attacks - your own first, then the opponent's possible replies. And after every move your opponent makes, ask “what is he threatening with that”. It takes about twenty seconds and removes most blunders.
Fifteen minutes every day beats two hours once a week: the goal is for a motif to be recognised instantly, and that comes from regularity. Solve them in your head without moving the pieces, and always go through your mistakes.
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Next - how to give mate, trainers on the board. The basics - the rules, the starting position. Also on the subject - how to read a chess book, chess and AI after AlphaZero.
At the board since childhood: hazy about his rating, precise about every rook he has blundered. Counts an evening as a good one if the opponent stayed to talk afterwards instead of rushing off to check with an engine. Message →
