Tactical combinations are the weapons of chess. Tactical preparation is the most important training you can obtain to improve your game. Until you are a rated master, you should study tactics more than any other part of the game. Tactical ability is the most significant difference between the beginner and the advanced player. If you want to be a chess master you must be able to see the tactical possibilities on the chessboard at a glance. That is why we have to continually practice by getting books or going to online chess sites or getting dvd's or cd's containing diagrams that show posiitions and ask you to find the tactics in the diagram. One of the earliest and best books along those lines is Reinfeld's "One Thousand And One Brilliant Checkmates." There are now of course hundreds of books available following along in these lines and many websites also that contain puzzles and problems that are very helpful. To find free ebooks containing thousands of examples of tactics go to the Main Menu of this site and click "Books."The idea of this section of this site is to present the ideas behind the tactics, showing what they are, how they arise and how to take advantage of them.
In tactical positions, one should always consider checks, captures, and threats, usually in that order. When can we consider a position to be tactical? This is a problem because when studying the diagrams we are always told that the posiiton is pregnant with possibilities but in actual over the board play we never really know when to stop and think. Thus we give you a list of instances when your opponent is vulnerable to tactical attack:
1. Loose (unguarded) pieces - "Loose Pieces Drop Off."
2. Pieces that can easily be attacked by enemy pieces of less value.
3. One or more pieces than can be attacked via a "Discovered Attack."
4. Weak back rank.
5. "Pinned" or "Skewerable" pieces along the same rank, file, or
diagonal.
6. Pieces or squares vulnerable to forks--especially Knight forks.
7. Overworked pieces.
8.Inadequately guarded pieces.
9. Falling way behind in development.
10.Pawns nearing promotion
11. King uncastled or lhaving ost pawn protection with Queens on the
board.
12. Open enemy lines for Rooks, Queens, and Bishops to King.
13. Pieces that have little mobility and might easily be trapped if
attacked.
14.A large domination of one side's forces in one area of the board.
Below is our list of tactics, these listings may be different than the conventional tactics listings because we are looking at them in terms of underlying ideas rather than convention.
Websites offering free tactical training.
Currently 23,803 tactical chess problems with a degree of difficulty ranging from trivial to ambitious are provided to be solved against the clock. Your tactical performance will be measured by the Glicko rating system.
This section features a tactics training Database in Chessbase format. Training course is made of 31 lessons, each featuring a different tactical theme. Each lesson consists of 4 difficulty levels, marked A, B, C, D, reaching from beginner(A) to master(D). The first lesson features the theme "Back rank weakness". Note that both English and German language are supported.
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