Tactics

In chess, a tactic refers to a short sequence of moves which limits the opponent's options and may result in tangible gain. Tactics are usually contrasted to strategy, in which advantages take longer to be realized, and the opponent is less constrained in responding[1].

The fundamental building blocks of tactics are two-move sequences in which the first move poses a double threat. The opponent is unable to respond to both threats in one move, so the first player realizes an advantage on the second move. This includes forks, skewers, batteries, discovered attacks, undermining, overloading, deflection, and interference[2]. Pins also fall into this category to some extent, although it is common for a defending player to relieve neither of the two threats posed by a pin, in which case the attacking player commonly maintains the pin for a longer period of time. A pin is therefore sometimes more strategic than tactical.

Often tactics of several types are conjoined in a combination. A combination, while still constraining the opponent's responses, takes several moves to obtain an advantage, and thus is considered deeper and more spectacular than the basic tactics listed above.

Chess computers are considered superhuman at tactics, but rather poor at strategy. Computers do not think about tactics in human terms (fork, skewer, etc.); rather, they apply very simple rules to evaluate hundreds of thousands of sequences, the vast majority of which are spurious.

 

Basic concepts

• Discovered attack
  
• Fork
  
• Pin
  
• Skewer
  
• Pawns
  
• Sacrifices
  
• Zugzwang
  
• Zwischenzug