The Complete Guide to Chess Tactics
What you'll learn
- Be able to use a fundamental understanding of chess tactics and combinations to sky-rocket your results and rating
- Be able to make sure opportunities are not missed in Calculation using Weakness of last move, Common squares, and "In-Effect"
- Be able to make use of the important tactical motifs like Fork, Deflection, Decoy, Pins, Discovered Checks, and many more etc
- Be able to get a feel for downsides of opponents position which could imply a combination exists
- Be able to use chess combinations to often win by force from positions where no issues visually seem present
- Be able to know the philosophies of great tactical examples explained in depth and re-use them in your own games
- Be able to use inspirational calculation aids such as "The power of the pinned piece is illusionary" and "Combine and win"
- Be able to understand the importance of the prioritisation of forcing moves when calculating to limit the opponent's replies
- Be able to appreciate the examples of combinations from the World chess champions
- Be able to exploit the default downside often of the Weak Back Rank
- Be able to exploit your passed pawn potential through tactical means
- Be able to exploit loose piece liabilities of the opponent
- Be able to exploit King safety issues of the opponent
- Be able to detect tactical issues and "celebrate" them using the concept word of "down-sides" throughout the examples
- Be able to understand the Fundamentals of Chess Tactics - Forcing moves, checks, captures, threats of mate and limiting opponent options in general
- Be able to match appropriate combinations with the downsides of the opponents position
- Be able to maximise the differential imposed between strengths of your position and opponent weaknesses
- Be able to play brilliant and beautiful chess combinations - but be warned you may lose sleep over them
- Be able to detect if combinations exist using various approaches of detection and examples
- Be able to finish off opponents quickly and get a new game in the all-you-can eat online tournaments
- Be able to play with very high accuracy sharp combinations
- Be able to recognise all the key mating patterns that have been established through Chess History
- Be able to practice with multiple examples all key tactical instruments which are part of combinations
Requirements
- Knows the basics of playing Chess
Description
FIDE CM Kingscrusher has one goal of the course. And that is to make you a much stronger tactician than ever before in your life. You should be in a much better position by training with this course to create beautiful chess combinations on the chessboard which feature a wide range of patterns and demonstrate amazing calculation ability. In short, the goal of the course is to make you a very strong chess tactician and help you enjoy your chess to the absolute maximum.
This course has a structure which is essentially is "process" and "patterns".
PROCESS: The Art of Chess Calculation
The "process" aspect is the art of chess calculation. Even if you didn't know a single tactical pattern by name, you could still play amazing tactics just with great calculation which the course gives you a solid foundation in. Yes, even if you didn't know your forks from your pins, the "Process" part of the course as in the art of calculation would still enable you to play great chess combinations using an entire orchestra of tactical patterns without even knowing their names.
But training yourself on patterns will enhance your art of calculation and you will be able to name the key tactical patterns which are important for searching them out to practice and discuss with others as well as prompt during your calculations.
"Process" is like the software of your chess mind. "Patterns" are like the Content for that software. You need both the software and the content to be really effective as a tactician!.
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PROCESS -><-PATTERNS
YOUR STRENGTHS OF POSITION (PLUSSES +'s) ====> MATCH WITH <=== (MINUSES -'s)
DOWNSIDES OF OPPONENTS POSITION (FOR MAXIMUM DIFFERENTIAL between the PLUS AND MINUS)
BOTTOM UP APPROACHES >----< TOP DOWN APPROACHES
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Patterns help feed the process of calculation. Your goal often is to create a maximum differential between the strengths of your position which can be realised from very strong calculation skills and the downsides of the opponent's position which often requires a trained intuition and eye for potential downsides to ensure you are even aware combinational solutions might exist.
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PATTERNS: Tactical Patterns, Mating Patterns, Weakness of Position patterns.
The "patterns" aspect is divided into three key "pattern" areas:
Bold ones below represent really key and frequent visitors to most people's games
Tactical Patterns (alphabetically)
These tactical patterns are very useful to practice and help internalise.
Absolute Pin
Advanced Pawn
Annihilation of Defence
Alekhine’s Gun
Attraction
Battery
Blockading defensive resources
Capture
Capture the Defender
Checks - gaining key tempo e.g. winning material via checks
Clearance
Combine and Win tactics
Connected passed pawns
Counterplay management move
Counter Threat
Cross-check
Cross-pin
Decoy
Deflection
Demolition of Pawns around opponent's king
Demolition of Pawn Structure
Desperado
Discovered Attack
Domination
Double Attack
Double Check
Draw Tactics
Endgame Tactics
Exchange sacrifice
f2 (or f7) weakness
Forcing Moves
Fork
Goal Hanging Tactics e.g. N on f5 (also see Thorn pawn)
Greek Gift Sacrifice
Indirect Defense
Interference
Intermediate move (synonym: Zuichenzug)
King Aggression in Endgames
King Chase
Liberational tactics
Opposition
Overload the defender
Weakness of last move
Passed pawn creation
Pawn-Fork
Pawn Tactics
Pawn Breakthrough
Perpetual Attack
Perpetual Check
Pins - Absolute
Pins - Relative
Pins - Celebration
Positional Tactic
Prophylaxis move
Removing King Escape Squares
Rook lift
Sacrifice (Positional)
Sacrifice (calculated)
Simplification
Queen and Bishop Battery
Quiet but killer move (greatly used in Alekhine combinations)
Relative Pin
Remove the Defender
Sacrifice
Simplification
Situational Pin
Soft spot sacrifice
Strategic Crush tactic - e.g. locking in bishop, good knight
Skewer
Stalemate Tactics
Tempo Tactics
Thorn Pawns
Threat making
Trapped Piece
Triangulation
Two Rooks Battery
Two Rooks on 7th Rank
Under-promotion
Weak Back-Rank
Weakness of last move
Windmill
X-Ray
X-Ray Attack
X-Ray Defense
Zugzwang
Zwischenzug
Mating Patterns (alphabetically)
These mating patterns are useful to practice and help internalise.
Anastasia's mate
Anderssen's mate
Arabian mate
Back-rank mate
Bishop and knight mate
Blackburne's mate
Blind swine mate
Boden's mate
Box mate (Rook mate)
Combine and Win Mate
Corner mate
Cozio's mate
Damiano's bishop mate
Damiano's mate
David and Goliath mate
Double bishop mate
Dovetail mate
Epaulette mate
Fool’s mate
Greco's mate
Hook mate
Kill Box mate
King and two bishops mate
King and two knights mate
Ladder checkmate
Légal mate
Lolli's mate
Max Lange's mate
Mayet's mate
Morphy's mate
Opera mate
Pillsbury's mate
Queen mate
Réti's mate
Smothered mate
Support mate
Suffocation mate
Swallow's tail mate
"Opponent Downsides" aka "Tactical Issues" aka "Tactical Liabilities" aka "Weakness of Position" Patterns
These help you intuitively identify if a combination may exist in the position.
Awkward Pieces (trappable)
King Safety Issues e.g. Back rank
Loose pieces (unprotected)
Overworked pieces
Pieces away from King
Tactical Liabilities in general
Weaknesses in general
Who this course is for:
- Chess beginner and intermediate players will get massive results improvement from this course
- Even more experienced players who want to sharpen their tactics. Every chess player can improve their tactical skills.
Featured review
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Course content
- Preview06:09
- 06:40The relative value of the pieces - and the King as the ultimate prize
- 07:09The Dynamic perspective needed to become a master tactician
- Preview06:22
- Preview08:30
- 06:21Importance of chess tactics for checkmating opponent's king
- 06:26Importance of chess tactics for winning material
- 06:43What is a sacrificial combination?
- 08:32Do combinations need sacrifices? - CC World Champion Cecil Purdy Example
- 05:39The presence of combinations - downsides vs combinational motifs (romanovsky)
- 11:59What is calculation - Is it a a form of awareness or further learning?
- 12:08What is Evaluation?
- 13:16Why prioritise forcing moves like checks, captures, mating threats
- 13:02What is a variation as opposed to main line?
- 11:40What is a pattern?
- 13:36Kingscrushers three golden tips when calculating variations
- 04:55Other major emerging opportunities when calculating - square vacation
- 03:21A tribute to Philip Dodderidge
Instructor
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 1,065 Reviews
- 4,983 Students
- 16 Courses
Tryfon Gavriel, also known as "Kingscrusher" on the Internet. I am a FIDE Candidate Master (CM), British Regional Chess Master, and run a popular Youtube channel for many years with over 114k+ Subs as of 2021 and a Silver Button Award.
I have done many shows on commercial chess servers. I am also the Webmaster of the correspondence style chess server Chessworld which emphasizes game quality and research.
Playing experience
Over 35 years of playing activity both online and offline. Peak ICC blitz rating of 2625 (18-Jun-1999). Peak ICC 5 min auto-pairing of 2383 (29-Jun 2012). ECF Grading peak classical: 212 (A) ECF. Peak Rapid rating: 217 (C). Lichess marathon top 10 finishers in 3 marathons so far. In the other two, top 50 finishers. Won quite a few tournaments at lichess
One of my earliest Over-the-board achievements in Chess was winning the Lloyds Under 18 national UK tournament in 1989. My trophy was awarded to me by Grandmaster and Ph.D. Mathematician Dr John Nunn.
Teaching experience
I have done teaching in Schools and also have done teaching online with several Lichess students on a regular basis, and have a very good coaching rating at lichess.
Other experiences
Played twice in the main British Chess championship. Many of my Youtube viewers claim big rating increases after watching my videos.
Best skills
I particularly love chess tactics and combinations, and it is probably no accident that my "Complete Guide to Chess Tactics" has been a best-seller since near inception here at Udemy.
In general, I will try and give you greater enthusiasm for the game and in particular the dynamic aggressive tactical aspects of playing chess. My favorite heroes are Paul Morphy, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Mikhail Tal. if you want to be a dynamic aggressive player, I may be able to encourage you and find you relevant resources on that path. The dynamic aggressive were particularly strong tactically and would often trade off pawn structure neatness and material to try and checkmate the opponent's kings. Checkmate does win the game :)
Chess Openings
In terms of concrete openings to make use of potentially teaching here at Udemy through courses, I like Solid openings on such as the London System. I also like provocative openings like the Knight's Tango systems to encourage weaknesses from opponents. I am also at faster time controls especially, particularly fond of aggressive openings and gambits. As an example, the Smith-Morra Gambit vs the Sicilian Defence, and other gambits can be used aggressively even with the black pieces such as the Albin Counter Gambit. Gambits vary of course in soundness and it is important to teach what "ticks many boxes" for use in various time controls. In the search for the ideal courses to provide you, I like to search within myself for my core strengths and passions within the passion of Chess.
I truly hope you enjoy my courses and they improve your chess and your enjoyment of chess generally - and life generally :)