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Posted on the Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC ) Facebook chess discussion page, " CCC - Chess Posts of Interest " :
CCC Discusses Chess – Posts of Interest – Deflection vs. Decoy
Both of these tactics are very important in chess although of course the pin is considered the most important. There are situations in which there is some vagueness of course but in general a decoy is to a specific square that a piece would not otherwise want to go to but is somehow forced or encouraged to move there.
This is the be...st example of a decoy that I recall seeing. The objective in this position is to win a queen for a rook. This is a decisive material advantage in the subject position. (Link and position given near end of article).
Rd8+ is played by White. Black has only one legal move: Kxd8. The king is therefore forced to the tactically unfortunate square of d8. He did not intend to pin his knight but it is now pinned! (“Surprise! Surprise!”) White plays Qxc6 and the knight cannot recapture because the pin is absolute.
Deflection is less specific. It’s as simple as getting a piece to move off its current square. Therefore these moves were also an example of deflection--although Rd7+ in the subject position would have an entirely different outcome!
It’s been said that some authors use these terms interchangeably; IIRC possibly by John Nunn in his excellent book “Learn Chess Tactics.”
However--knowing the difference may help you in chess calculation.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess...on?cid=1012072
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2012.07.15"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "4k2r/4np1p/1pq1p1p1/p1p1P1B1/Q7/P1P4P/1P4P1/3R2K1 w k - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "0"]
Joe Fatula, CCC member, USA
CCC Discusses Chess – Posts of Interest – Deflection vs. Decoy
Both of these tactics are very important in chess although of course the pin is considered the most important. There are situations in which there is some vagueness of course but in general a decoy is to a specific square that a piece would not otherwise want to go to but is somehow forced or encouraged to move there.
This is the be...st example of a decoy that I recall seeing. The objective in this position is to win a queen for a rook. This is a decisive material advantage in the subject position. (Link and position given near end of article).
Rd8+ is played by White. Black has only one legal move: Kxd8. The king is therefore forced to the tactically unfortunate square of d8. He did not intend to pin his knight but it is now pinned! (“Surprise! Surprise!”) White plays Qxc6 and the knight cannot recapture because the pin is absolute.
Deflection is less specific. It’s as simple as getting a piece to move off its current square. Therefore these moves were also an example of deflection--although Rd7+ in the subject position would have an entirely different outcome!
It’s been said that some authors use these terms interchangeably; IIRC possibly by John Nunn in his excellent book “Learn Chess Tactics.”
However--knowing the difference may help you in chess calculation.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess...on?cid=1012072
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2012.07.15"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "4k2r/4np1p/1pq1p1p1/p1p1P1B1/Q7/P1P4P/1P4P1/3R2K1 w k - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "0"]
Joe Fatula, CCC member, USA