Opening Principles
We've heard 'em before: get a pawn or two in the center, develop most of your minor pieces, get your king safe, try not to move the same piece a lot in the opening, and keep your pieces coordinated. These are but a few and I'm sure most "advanced beginners" are aware of them! If not, read Chernev.
What is the purpose of these? Without them, a new player might play 1. a4? followed by 2. a5? "Hey, I'm getting my pawn only three squares from promotion, right? I can maybe get a second queen soon! Oh, maybe I'll bring the castle out, too. He seems super destructive!" 3. Ra4??
I remember teaching my nephew the rules of chess over Christmas and he opened with 1. h3. I probably played something similar back in the day so I can't blame him.
Another new player might make his or her decision by going through each possible move until one looks good. "1. a3? nah. 1. a4? maybe. 2. b3? hmmm.... 2. b4? Ohhh I like that. Ohh, the horsey can jump over pawns, so Nc3? Ohh wait the Queen is the best, how fast can I get her out? Oh god what do I do?"
The opening principles help the beginner navigate through the jungle of options they have to face when starting a game. Once you understand them, you can more easily identify moves that align with those principles and ta-da! You have a set of candidate moves to calculate!
Tactical Principles
We have opening principles, why not have tactical principles?
All games begin the same so it's sensible to make a general guideline on how to approach the opening. My theory is that most tactical puzzles begin the same in that often have one or two common elements present and you can develop a structured approach to help your decision-making.
Over time this approach will hopefully become more instinctual.
In the same way that a beginner might have no idea how to begin a chess game, he might not know how to solve a typical tactics problem. Like the jungle of options in the opening, a player might also see a jungle of options when presented with a tactical problem. They might think they have to check every single possible move but we know that is not practical. He is told "look for checks and captures" but that is probably all the advice given. In reality, there are usually some common elements at play. These are (with the help of a redditor):
Underdefended Pieces - First off, completely undefended pieces are easily prone to attack! There are also poorly or under-defended pieces to consider as well. These might be pieces attacked as many times as they are defended or pieces only defended by heavy pieces (overworked piece tactics!)
Favorable Geometry - Lines. Diagonals. Fork-able positions. Major pieces (both white's and black's) may fall favorably within those geometries. Such a position may also be forced!
Trapped Pieces - This can include the king obviously! Usually it is the heavy pieces or a bishop trapped by pawns but keep your mind open!
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These are the elements you'll want to search for in most tactics puzzles. They serve as tactic locators. From these, you might be able to use tactical motifs in combination with calculation using checks and captures as shortcuts. I look at it in terms of the situation, the tools to use, and the work needed to use those tools. These tactical elements comprise the situation, the tools you will use are tactial motifs like forks or removing the defender, and the work needed is calculation often using checks and captures to begin.
Granted, as you get better, you might immediately see a weak king, spot a quick check and then see that that'll attack something else. You obviously won't need to list out all the under-defended pieces and such. That's okay (ideal!). This guide can be for when you're truly clueless or for those just beginning tactical study and you want to build the proper instincts.
A caveat before the examples: you need to be very familiar with pretty much all of the tactical motifs available. See ChessTempo.
Examples
Below are some simple examples of ChessTempo tactics puzzles. I'll try to highlight some of what I see in regards to the tactical elements I mentioned so you can try to develop your own approach.
1. Black to move
Let's be methodical!
Favorable geometry?
I typically think of this in terms of lines and diagonals and I look at the opponent's king as well as all major pieces of mine and my opponent's that might be on any of those lines or diagonals. This is an important element in pins, skewers, discoveries, x-rays, and forks. Keep in mind the unusual formations involved in knight-forks. I lovingly call these "fork-able" positions (think king on h1 and rook on d1).
So in this example, I see that white's queen and bishop are on the same diagonal. Typically a queen and rook on the same diagonal is better for tactics since it's hard to attack a queen and bishop on a diagonal. Likewise, a queen and bishop on the same rank/file is better suited. I also see that my (black's) knight is one move away from checking the king. This should excite the "forking" part of your tactical brain! Of course, you can quickly see that you don't have a great knight check right now because white's pieces guard it well. But it's still good to spot this! You never know if/when those pieces will move. Just being aware of that possibility five moves down the road might be helpful so it's good to train your brain to spot this geometry, however impossible it might be at the present moment.
You might see more possibilities in the 'favorable geometry' department and that's good! But we'll move on...mostly because this is getting long and I already know the answer ;).
Trapped Pieces?
Trapped pieces are a bit more rare, but remember that a King is considered a piece so a king with few options could be considered trapped! Anyway, let's go to the other pieces first. The queen isn't really close to being trapped. I could trade bishops and then the queen has to re-take but I don't see much after that to threaten the queen. Bishops are hard to trap unless they are blocked in and attack-able with pawns. Knights are easy to block in with bishops. I don't see anything promising with those though. Ditto with the rooks. Always check for trapped pieces, especially for the king and when a queen or rook's movement is seriously hindered by pawns and other pieces. The king in the corner has only one escape square if it's threatened--back-rank issues may be present here!
Undefended and underdefended pieces?
This is getting long and I won't go into specifics but underdefended pieces are those attacked at least as many times as they are defended. These are prime for tactics such as a simple removing the defender or a tricky intermezzo! In our first example, one thing that should jump out is the rook on e1. Completely undefended! And remember that well placed knight from the "Favorable Geometry" section? It can't really give a strong check right now, but it is watching h2. That in itself is almost a form of favorable geometry-when a piece is guarding over a mating square! And black's queen can swing over to h4 to threaten mate in one on h2! Qh4 also attacks black's undefended rook! Tactic!
See how that came together by highlighting some of the elements! It may have seemed like I fed it to you towards the end but the point is that you can take stock of a position by checking these elements and the answers slowly reveal themselves. Naturally, many reading this probably saw the mate threat pretty quick and shortly after that, saw that it hit the undefended rook--which is good! But this system is aiming to help those less familiar with tactical ideas or when you have no clue as to what's going on in a tactical position.
Now typically, you aren't gonna have time to run down this insane checklist to take stock of the situation. Instead, make it a priority to at least notice some of them and usually they'll point you in the right direction. If that fails, you might have to sort through all of them and then resort to calculating all checks and captures. For this puzzle, I remember pretty quickly seeing a knight check I had with Nf2+ so I was looking for favorable geometry for a fork but it really didn't work. However, that still brought to my immediate attention that I had a knight very close to their king. Then my eye saw that the queen could come in to h4 to threaten mate. And that's when I spotted the undefended rook. Oh! I then saw the move! So you see, I didn't go through a whole checklist, but just spotting one of the tactical elements pointed me in the right direction. It highlighted the undefended piece and boom, I had my tactic!
Answer: Qh4 threatens Qxh2# and it also attacks white's rook.
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2. Black to move
Clearly, it's easy to be verbose about any given tactical position. Instead of trying to be comprehensive, I'll try to simply highlight one or two examples of any given element, as I might do when solving these myself.
Black has a knight one move away from check--the queen guards it but keep an eye on it!
Black's queen is aligned with a rook, a simple pawn capture with dxc3 opens up that line which could be good or dangerous.
Trapped Pieces?
It looks like white's knights have escape squares.
His rooks have a fair amount of freedom to move.
White's bishop is hemmed in quite a bit, but even if I found a way to scare it, it can always just take my knight on f4. Bishops are trapped nicely with pawns surrounding them! Here, white could simply trade out if, say, I had a pawn ready to come into h4.
What about the queen?? Hmmmmm... Queens are good to trap. As you check white's queen's movement, you will see black has a lot of the squares covered!
Undefended and underdefended pieces?
You may already have the answer but I'll continue for illustrative purposes. White's knight on c4 is a classic example of an underdefended piece. Yes it is defended by the a3 knight, but is attacked exactly once by black's bishop. Same number of defenders as attackers = underdefended piece! This piece tension is prime time for tactics simply because one side is almost always going to re-capture (unless they find an intermezzo!!!) and you know with what piece they will use, so the calculation is far easier. Maybe there's a removing the defender idea, or maybe the piece guarding the other piece has other duties, thus making it overworked! In this case, Bxc4, Nxc4 doesn't result in a lot but wasn't that simple to check?
White's bishop and rooks aren't being attacked at all, and they have sufficient defenders so that's about it for this section.
Yes, the queen is trapped! You may have had to try out all the possible ways to attack it or perhaps it's a bishop sacrifice...anyway, if you found out that the queen was oddly placed with few escape squares, you'll eventually see the move.
Answer: pawn to g4 attacks the queen with no safe squares.
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3. Black to move
Favorable geometry?
Immediately, you'll want to see that white's king and queen are on the same diagonal. This is a perfect example of favorable geometry. Hopefully you see black's move that takes advantage in one move!
White's rook is on the same rank as his king. As mentioned, it's hard to attack rooks that share ranks or files with bigger pieces and ditto with bishops on diagonals with bigger pieces. Make sure you understand why.
Trapped Pieces?
Nothing is really trapped for white. Wide open positions are less ideal for trapped pieces.
Undefended and underdefended pieces?
The rook on e1 jumps out to me as an undefended piece. And it can be hit in one move by the Queen. Qb4 could be something to look at if you otherwise didn't see the solution.
White's bishop on c4 is an underdefended piece as it has the same number of attackers as defenders. So, again, it's always worth it to see what would happen if you initiate a trade (keeping in mind the possibility that your opponent is not required to re-take). Bxc4, bxc4 and then Qxc4 wins a pawn but A) your opponent might not care about that pawn, B) your king is very open so white might simply play some devastating intermezzos, and C) black has a much stronger move anyway that you probably spotted. Find a seemingly good move? Look for a better one.
Answer: Bc6 pinning and winning the queen. White has no intermezzo tricks with the rook.
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4. Black to move
4. Black to move
Favorable geometry?
White's bishop and king are on the same rank.
Blacks' queen and rook are lined up; that can be powerful battery. Too bad it's not currently pointing at anything. Perhaps you spot a queen trade on e2 because then Rxe2 and I can play Rxe2 pinning the bishop. Not much followup though. (see how I used some favorable geometries to start some quick calculating?)
Black's bishop is on the same diagonal as white's queen; that's a definite strong tactical opportunity. You'll want to see that the f5 pawn is in a relative pin.
Trapped Pieces?
White's queen could potentially be trapped. Notice that black's pawns on b5, c5, and g5 are shutting down six of the eight squares on the 4th rank! That's a lot of key escape squares if I could find a way to attack the queen.
White's rook on f3 doesn't have a ton of options, but it's also attacking my queen!!! What about the other rook....
Undefended and underdefended pieces?
Oh, that other rook is totally undefended. I can't even bother to look at the other pieces. I see a tricky queen move that actually traps it! See how an undefended piece turned into a trapped piece!
A note on "checks and captures"
The idea to always look at checks and captures is a good one. You'll want to get very fast at visualizing a board after a series of captures. Tactics are great for visualization practice. But going over all possible captures can also be a time-waster to avoid. For example in the above position, you might consider sacrificing black's queen with Qxf3 (hey, Queen sacs are common in tactics, right?) thinking you can win it back later. But Qxf3 leaves a lot of options for white to re-capture. You don't want to get bogged down with working through all the possible re-captures unless you see nothing else. So a shortcut I use a lot is when I see a possible temporary sac like Qxf3 but I also see three possible re-takes, it's probably not going to be worth my time in a game to check all the responses. Therefore I often nix ideas like that early on. If you're truly perplexed or you really need to double check, by all means look at all the options. Just know you might have to be practical during a real game!
Answer: Qc1
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5. Black to move
Favorable geometry?
Black's queen is on a diagonal with white's king, pinning white's e3 pawn. Very important!
Black's knight is one move away from attacking white's queen on two different squares.
Black's rook is on the same line as white's bishop (discoveries?).
Trapped Pieces?
Looks like white has sufficient escape squares for their pieces.
Undefended and underdefended pieces?
Rook on c1 is only defended once but no black piece is attacking it. So it's not quite ready for tactics. Rc8 could attack it but you can run some visualization to see that that doesn't really work.
White's bishop on d3 is defended once, but only by the queen. Heavy pieces make for poor defenders as they can be overworked or easily scared away. Hey! Remember that we noted black's rook is on the same line as the poorly defended bishop! Hmmm....And black's knight is one move away from attacking the queen which is the sole defender of the bishop. Moving the knight also opens up the rook's attack on the bishop (favorable geometry)! Oh this is looking juicy! And the e3 pawn is pinned so black has Nf4 as a move! That attacks the queen and puts two attackers on the poorly defended bishop!
This example is a great display of how tactical elements can come together!
Answer: Nf4
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Checks and Captures
I didn't include these in the "elements" list but they are vital to solving tactics. Calculation is necessary and checks and captures are the things to calculate first. Sometimes calculation can spark ideas if looking at the 3 elements doesn't present many ideas. Sometimes observing the elements can lead to calculation and you spot the idea quickly!
An example of the first is when you see a piece attacking another piece so you do a quick calculation and you see that the defender of that piece has to re-capture and that leaves another piece undefended! So quick calculation pointed you towards a removing the defender tactic because of underdefended pieces!
An example of the second situation might be that you see a queen and rook in a position ready to be forked by your knight but the forking square is covered. Ohhh, but then you see that the only piece defending that square is being attacked so you can trade it off and your fork works! You spotted favorable geometry here then some calculation pointed you towards an overworked piece!
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Clearly not every position will be tactical and you'll have to work on your awareness to know when a position might become sharp. From there, hopefully this lesson can help you spot the weaknesses prone to combinations! Do you have to go through a checklist of all undefended and underdefended pieces, trapped pieces, favorable geometry, every single capture and on and on? Of course not. You work on these tactical problems so you develop your own method and you develop intuition on what the position might call for. You might immediately see back-rank issues and you calculated mate in 2 so clearly you won't care that their queen is undefended or you have favorable geometry with a bishop. BFD.
Being aware of some of these common elements and pointing them out yourself will certainly help you in building your intuition!
Moreover, you'll start to gather broad takeaways that are kind of like tactical truths. For instance, knights and bishop trades are very common in removing the defender tactics, a bishop or rook is really good at reducing escape squares for a queen, a knight that is one move away from checking a king or queen is very strong, a few pawns on the same rank or diagonal are extremely efficient at shutting down escape squares for a piece, a queen and rook on the same diagonal can be prone to a skewer or pin just as a queen and bishop on the same rank/file can be, major pieces make poor sole defenders of a piece since they can be scared away easily and/or overworked...
Some of those were even discovered in the examples in this post! These tactical truths are too numerous to list out. The point is that studying tactical positions can highlight the power of the pieces and how they work together and you'll start ingraining these truths into your chess vision.
A final FINAL note - Take your time with tactics!
See how some of these example problems were pretty simple but I still took the time to show other things going on? It's great practice to do this. Yes it feels good to find the queen pin in a split-second in example three but it can never hurt to double-check anything else. Remember in the fourth problem, I noted that the f5 pawn was pinned to the queen? This didn't play a part in the rook trap, but it is important practice to notice these things when you look at a position. In a real game, you'd want to be aware of pinned pieces and pawns all the time! Pointing them out in tactics problems will help to train that muscle even if they have nothing to do with the problem.
Training tactics can sometimes turn into a casino game where you try to guess the move ASAP so you get the reward of a ding sound or +7 tactics ratings points or whatever. Take the time to really check all possible moves and counterplay you see and go for 100% accuracy. A good tactics book is ideal because you are more forced to check other lines and all replies by your opponent. If you're not careful, online trainers can turn into addicting games where you start moving too fast without fully thinking the combination through. The online trainers are great, just be wary of moving too fast!
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