Every Attacking Chess Pattern | Explained In Under 19 Minutes

It was Bobby Fischer, the 11th World Chess Champion, who once said that chess is war over the board, the object is to crush the opponent's mind. Strong chess players all know the value of playing with the initiative, attacking dynamic chess, so in this video I'm going to share the most important attacking chess patterns that all strong chess players know. These tips helped me reach a rating of 2100 rapid on chess.com, and I think they can improve your play as well, so keep watching. Lesson 1. Provoke weakening pawn moves around the castled enemy king. This position is from Collet versus Delvaux, 1929. Currently black's got the ideal defensive setup. All three of these pawns in front of the castled black king are on their starting squares, and black also has this knight on f6, providing extra defense, particularly to the h7 square. So for white to launch a successful attack, white needs to provoke one of these pawns to move forward. Now white's able to do this by playing knight f to g5. Just to show white's threat here, if we make it white's turn again, white was going to play knight to f6 check, and after black recaptures, then the pawn on h7 falls. This not only wins a pawn for white, but it's going to win decisive material or lead to checkmate after the black king moves, followed up by queen to h5. So that's why in the game, after knight f to g5, black played h6, trying to kick that knight away. But after this, white played knight takes f6 check anyway, black recaptured, and then queen to e4, again provokes another pawn move around the black king. Black really needs to now play g6, which was played, and now a sacrifice for white works because of this weakened pawn structure around the black king. This is much more difficult to defend than back when the pawns were on g7 and h7. Here white played the knight sacrifice, knight takes e6, and after black took back, queen takes g6 check, and pretty soon white was able to launch a decisive checkmate attack. But it began with moving the black pawns forward, provoking them forward, starting with h6, and then followed by g6. That's what weakened black's castle, and that's what led white to have a decisive checkmating attack. Lesson 2. If the enemy king is yet to get castled, try and prevent it. It's black to move here in Magaramov versus Kasparov, 1977, and we can see a clear difference in the king safety of the two sides. White's king is uncastled, whereas black's king is perfectly safe in the castled position. White needs a couple of moves to play, for example, bishop to e2 and castle kingside, and if white can achieve that, then white will be absolutely fine. So it's up to black to play energetically and prevent white from getting castled. To do that, you have to create threats, which black was able to do starting with knight to e6. So this attacks the white rook, and if white doesn't want to lose the exchange, then he has to move that rook, which he does, and then black's follow-up is just as important, d4. Now, since both the pawn on e3 and the knight on c3 are attacked, it opens up the e-file for the benefit of black after black plays rook to e8. I think this position already is extremely hard for white to play. There's all sorts of discovered check threats. The knight, for example, could just take on d4, which would be check to the white king, which regains the pawn straight away. But let's just see a few more moves, because we want to show the power of keeping the enemy king stuck in the middle. So f3 was played. The idea is that white is trying to perhaps play king to f2 and get his king safe this way, but black actually is able to sacrifice on f3. The sacrifice takes some calculation, but I think the lead-up of knight to e6, followed by d4, and then rook to e8 is more obvious. But okay, let's just see what happens after the sacrifice, because it is a Kasparov game after all, he was famous for playing exciting, aggressive, attacking chess. So the pawn took back, and then queen to h4, check. Rook to f2, blocks, but then we get another check. Bishop to e2, blocks again, and then another check. We'll leave it here. You can check out the rest of the game if you want to see how Kasparov finished it off, but I think it's clear to see that black is dominating the white king, white is unable to get their king to safety, and it's going to be curtains pretty soon for the player with the white pieces. If you're enjoying this video so far, please do me a quick favor and drop a like down below. It'll help this video reach a greater audience. And with that, let's get back to the lessons. Lesson 3. Open lines towards the enemy king, even at the cost of material. Black is on the attack in Tarasch versus Alyaikin 1922. Black's queen, knight, dark-squared bishop, and rook on the f-file are all very well placed to start an attack against white's king. Now, white does have some pawn cover, but most of white's pieces are over on the queen's side, far away from the defense of the king. Now, there's one of black's pieces which is not at the moment playing much of a role. It's the light-squared bishop. It would be very strong on this diagonal, pointing straight at the white king, if not for two of black's own pawns on e4 and d5. So what did Alyaikin do? Well, that's the point of this lesson. He looked to sacrifice those pawns, starting with d4. Now, in the game, Tarasch didn't like the continuation after capturing this pawn. We'll show that in a moment. And instead, Tarasch played bishop to c1. And after this, Alyaikin pushed on with d3, getting a connected passed pawn in the beating heart of white's position. A different type of positional advantage, and a different type of game. But I do want to show what happens if white accepts the pawn sacrifice. Because if you take on d4, then the follow-up is actually e3, sacrificing the other pawn as well. There are a number of different lines here, but I'm just going to show one, because I think it's illustrative of what happens when this light-squared bishop is able to join the attack as well. So, for the moment, black is actually threatening checkmate on g2, now that the light-squared bishop is freed. So white would look to capture with the knight. Now the knight defends g2. Black captures to renew the threat of checkmate. Capturing with the pawn now allows the queen to defend g2. So white is just holding on here by the skin of his teeth. After queen to g3, there's another threat of checkmate. All the threats are piling up here. And what if white looks to play knight to f1, getting the knight away and defending the square? Well, of course, now you've got a rook sacrifice, which allows queen to h2 mate. As I say, there's a number of different lines there if you want to explore it on your own. But the point is, all the way back in the starting position, where to get this light-squared bishop into the game, you need to open the line. How to open the line? Well, it's through sacrificing black's own pawns with this sequence. And now the light-squared bishop is playing. Great attacking play there from Alyakin. Lesson four. Identify and remove key defenders. This position comes from one of my own online games in 2023. Now I'm playing white, and I'm going to show the sequence which I didn't find in the game. So what should I have done here? Well, the key thing to realize is that black's most important defensive piece is actually this knight on e7. Why? Well, the knight defends the f5 square, and it also defends the g6 square, both of which might be avenues for white to attack if this knight is removed. I think in chess you can get taught things as a beginner or an intermediate level player which don't serve you so well as you get more advanced. So one of the things that you may have heard is that bishops tend to be better than knights in an open position. And here we've got an open position. We've got an attacking position. And this knight does look rather passive, rather defensive. It's not aggressively placed anyway, but it's performing an important defensive role for black. And for that reason, its head has to roll. And that would start with bishop takes e7. Now, black has to take back with a queen, and now white can start piling up the threats, starting with rook to g1, for example, threatening to capture on g7. So what if black looks to defend? Well, now another good move and another good concept is to bring the last piece into the attack. So with that pawn sacrifice, we free the d5 square for the white knight to jump into. And now the threats are really coming thick and fast against black. So the queen has to move, and now there's actually a forced checkmating sequence. It's checkmate in seven moves, and I don't think I need to show that, but I think we can clearly see that black is struggling here big time. The black king is more exposed than it was back in the starting position. And it's all thanks to identifying what the key defensive piece was, and then eliminating it. If you've watched this far, it's because you're serious about improving your chess. I help ambitious adults at the below 2000 Elo level improve their results in the game. So if you'd like to explore working together, click the link in the description below. It's at the top of the description or as the pinned comment, and we can see if working together will be a good fit. And with that, let's get back to the lessons. Lesson five. Identify and target the attacking focal point. Now, what do I mean by that? What is a focal point? Well, to illustrate, I'm going to use a sideline from the game Reti versus Wolf, 1922. Black has sacrificed material in order to get this attack. If you count the material, white is a piece up, but the white king is clearly in some jeopardy. But how to continue here? Well, the focal point is e2. This is where black's attack revolves around. But for the time being, white is doing a pretty good job of defending that focal point, both with the bishop and with the queen. Now, I think a lot of players with black here would play queen to f2 check. And after king to d2, it looks very bad visually for white. But concretely, how do you continue? You can't really capture on e2 because the bishop is still guarding that square. So let's go back to the starting position because there is a much cleaner way of finishing the game off immediately here. And it requires thinking in this way, using focal points and playing bishop to f5. What this move does is it distracts one of the defenders of the focal point. The focal point's e2. The bishop is defending e2. So let's distract that bishop away so that e2 becomes weaker. If white captures the material that's on offer, now you give the check on f2. And if the white king goes to d1, then there's simply the knight fork, which picks up the queen. And if the white king instead goes to d2, because this light squared bishop has been distracted over to f5, now rook takes e2, skewers the white king and queen, once the white king moves somewhere, black's going to pick up the queen next move, and black's going to have an overwhelming material advantage. And it all starts by thinking in the right way, by thinking about focal points. Lesson six, the Greek gift sacrifice. This is a common and important attacking pattern which begins with bishop takes h7 check. Now if the black king doesn't take the bishop, then white has just won a pawn for nothing. Whereas if black does accept the peace sacrifice, then white's follow-up is knight to g5 check. Now if the black king goes back, queen to h5 threatens queen to h7 checkmate, and black actually has to give up the queen here. And giving up the queen is akin to resigning, let's say. So if instead the black king goes to h6, then there's this discovered check from the dark squared bishop. Now once the king moves, again, white picks up the queen and should go on to win the game. The greatest test of the Greek gift is often actually king to g6. Now this may look very foolhardy to bring the king out like this, but it can actually work sometimes because it prevents queen to h5 because that square is now guarded by the black king. But in this case, there's too many elements in white's favor. White can start with queen to d3 check. Black can try to block, but it's not going to work because at the end, rook takes, e6 is checkmate. Let's go back to the starting position because obviously this sacrifice on h7 doesn't always work. So what are the elements in white's favor that means that in a position like this, it does? Well, first of all, there's no black knight on f6. If there was a black knight on f6, then black could play knight takes h7 if there was a knight on that square. The fact that white has a pawn on e5 means that there can be no black knight on f6 because it's controlled by white. So often a pawn on e5 is one of the preconditions because it forces the defensive knight away from f6. Another thing in white's favor here is that there's no dark squared bishop on e7. If there was a dark squared bishop on e7, then bishop takes g5 could be a reply for black. If you can eliminate that knight with a bishop on e7 taking that knight, then again, the Greek gift sacrifice isn't really so dangerous. Also, it's important that white still has this dark squared bishop on this diagonal. That prevents black from being able to play king to h6. If this bishop was traded off or if it was elsewhere, like if it was on b2, for example, then there'd be no discovered check like there is here. So you've got to have this bishop on this diagonal. And also, as we saw in this other line, it's useful to have the white rook already on the e-file. It's not as important, but it helps. It's another one of these things that you can look at to decide, even without calculating absolutely everything, is the sacrifice likely to work? Lesson 7, the double bishop sacrifice. This is another key attacking pattern, which you're much more likely to see in your games if you've taken the time to study it. To do that, we're going to take a position from Nimzovich versus Tarasch, 1914. It's black to move, and black begins by sacrificing the first bishop via bishop takes h2 check. So white's king captures. And now it's important to the success of the double bishop sacrifice that black is able to follow up with queen to h4 check. Because of this, the white king has only one legal move. It has to go back to g1. And now what follows is the second bishop sacrifice. Bishop takes g2. The white king takes again. And now it's important to remember this intermediate check, queen to g4 check. Now what this does is it forces the white king over to the h-file, either to h1 or to h2. It doesn't really matter, actually. Let's just say it goes to h2. And now the final follow-up that makes the pattern work is rook to d5. Black needs to be able to play this rook lift. The threat is to play rook to h5 checkmate. The black queen controls the g-file, and the rook coming over to h5 is going to control the h-file, delivering a ladder checkmate. So let's go back to the starting position and just see all of these elements in action. So what's important here? Well, you've got to have both bishops pointing towards the enemy king side. You've got to have the queen able to come over to deliver a check after the first bishop sacrifice takes place. And then after the king goes back, you need to be ready to sacrifice that other bishop, as we saw. And then this check followed by the rook lift. Those are the elements that make the double bishop sacrifice work. Just a reminder that I help ambitious adult improvers reach their goals in chess, whatever they may be. So if you'd like to explore working together, click the link in the description below. Aside from that, if you've enjoyed this video, please show your appreciation by giving it a like down below. Subscribe to the channel if you want more videos like this one. And do feel free to drop a comment down below as well. I'd love to hear what you thought of the lessons. Until next time then, I'm Nathan Rose. Thanks for watching, and bye for now.