Every Tactical Motif in GM Games

Knight fork, Fischer vs. Reshevsky, 1961: Fischer's knight leaps to c2, forking White's king and rook, the product of three moves of precise preparation. The fork didn't appear from nowhere; Fischer created the conditions by driving the king to e1 and the rook to a1. Queen fork, Kasparov vs. Karpov, 1985: Kasparov's queen sacrifice creates a discovered attack that forks the king and rook, winning material and the game.

Pattern: Forks require two targets on specific squares. Create the conditions by forcing pieces to vulnerable squares.

Absolute pin, Anand vs. Adams, 2005: A bishop pin along the a2-g8 diagonal immobilises Black's knight, which is the key defender of the d5 pawn. The pin is not the tactic, it's the precondition that enables the pawn capture. Discovered attack, Tal vs. Botvinnik, WCC 1960: Tal moves a bishop to reveal an attack by his rook, winning the exchange. The discovered attack was set up three moves earlier by placing the rook on the correct file.

Deflection, Kasparov vs. Karpov, 1986: Kasparov's rook sacrifice deflects the defending queen from the back rank, allowing a mating combination. Overloaded piece, Carlsen vs. Caruana, 2019: Black's bishop is simultaneously defending a pawn and covering a mating square. Carlsen attacks the pawn, forcing the bishop to choose, and losing either way.

Windmill, Torre vs. Lasker, 1925: The most famous windmill in chess history, alternating discovered checks that win multiple pieces. Zwischenzug, Anand vs. Aronian, 2013: An in-between check that transforms a seemingly equal position into a winning one, the zwischenzug creates a tempo advantage that decides the game.

Study all these patterns in our pattern library and practise with puzzle training.