100 Tactical Patterns to Master

1. Knight fork, a knight attacks two pieces simultaneously.
2. Bishop fork, a bishop on a diagonal attacks two targets.
3. Queen fork, the queen attacks two or more pieces.
4. Pawn fork, a pawn advance attacks two pieces.
5. Absolute pin, a piece is pinned to its king.
6. Relative pin, a piece is pinned to a more valuable piece.
7. Skewer, the reverse of a pin: a valuable piece is attacked and must move, exposing a piece behind it.
8. Discovered attack, moving one piece reveals an attack by another.
9. Discovered check, a discovered attack where the revealed attack is check.
10. Double check, two pieces give check simultaneously (only the king can move).

1. Deflection, forcing a defender away from its duty.
2. Decoy, luring a piece to a bad square.
3. Removing the guard, capturing or chasing away a key defender.
4. Overloaded piece, a piece defending two things at once.
5. X-ray attack, attacking through an intermediate piece.
6. Interference, placing a piece between two enemy pieces to cut their coordination.
7. Trapped piece, a piece with no safe squares.
8. Desperado, a doomed piece captures something before it dies.
9. Zwischenzug (intermezzo), an "in-between move" inserted before the expected recapture.
10. Zwischenschach, an in-between check.

1. Back-rank mate.
2. Smothered mate.
3. Arabian mate, knight and rook cooperate.
4. Anastasia's mate, knight and rook on an open file.
5. Boden's mate, two bishops on crossing diagonals.
6. Blackburne's mate, two bishops and a knight.
7. Damiano's mate, queen and pawn.
8. Dovetail mate (Cozio's mate), queen supported by a piece.
9. Epaulette mate, king flanked by its own pieces.
10. Greco's mate, bishop and rook on the h-file.

1. Hook mate.
2. Kill box (suffocation mate).
3. Lawnmower mate, two rooks or queen and rook driving the king to the edge.
4. Lolli's mate.
5. Max Lange mate.
6. Morphy's mate, bishop + rook mate against a castled king.
7. Opera mate.
8. Pillsbury's mate.
9. Scholar's mate.
10. Vukovic's mate, rook and knight.

1. Battery, two pieces aligned on the same file, rank, or diagonal (e.g., queen behind bishop).
2. Clearance sacrifice, removing your own piece from a square so another can use it.
3. Windmill, alternating discovered checks that win material with each cycle.
4. Greek gift sacrifice, Bxh7+ against a castled king (Nf3, Bd3, Qc2 setup).
5. Pawn breakthrough, a pawn sacrifice to create a passed pawn.
6. Undermining, attacking the support of a defended piece or pawn.
7. Tempo gain, attacking a piece to gain a free move.
8. Zugzwang, forcing your opponent into a position where any move worsens their situation.

• 49–55. Pawn tactics: en passant tricks, promotion threats, pawn forks, pawn chains, backward pawn exploitation, passed pawn creation, blockade.
• 56–62. Rook tactics: seventh-rank rook, doubling rooks, rook lift, rook behind passed pawn, rook sacrifice for mating attack, rook endgame swindles, hook mate setup.
• 63–70. Minor piece tactics: knight outpost exploitation, wrong-coloured bishop, bishop pair advantage, knight vs. bad bishop, opposite-coloured bishop attacks, bishop sacrifice on h7/h2, minor piece coordination.

• 71–80. Positional tactics: exchange sacrifice for dominance, permanent pin, prophylactic sacrifice, piece-for-three-pawns trade, transition from middlegame attack to winning endgame, queen sacrifice for perpetual avoidance, rook sacrifice to open file, deflection into inferior endgame, bishop-pair surrender for pawn structure, fortress recognition.
• 81–90. Endgame tactics: Lucena bridge, Philidor defence, opposition, triangulation, corresponding squares, Réti study-type manoeuvre, stalemate tricks, wrong bishop + rook pawn, two-bishop checkmate, fortress breaking.
• 91–100. Combined themes: double deflection, triple fork, sacrifice + zugzwang, sacrifice + stalemate avoidance, perpetual check avoidance, positional-tactical combination, attack + simplification, piece coordination tactic, king walk, constructive sacrifice.

Don't try to learn all 100 at once. Study 5 per week. For each pattern, solve 3–5 example puzzles in our puzzle trainer and study examples in the pattern library. After 20 weeks, you'll have internalised every pattern on this list, and your tactical vision will be transformed.