Sports & Gaming
Deflection/Attraction
Lesson time 23:25 min
Defense requires harmony, and knowing how to disrupt your opponent is critical. Garry shows how to identify an opponent’s target and then find a tactical way to destroy that defensive coordination.
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Topics include: Simple but Destructive • Reshevsky vs Fischer, 1970 • Deflection/Attraction in a Queen Ending • Skewer and Attraction • One Position, Three Themes • Kasparov vs Karpov, 1986 • Kasparov vs Anand, 1993 • Deflection Limits a Piece’s Potential • Pawns in Endgame • Challenge: A Deflection/Attraction Study
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Garry Kasparov teaches you advanced strategy, tactics, and theory in 29 exclusive video lessons.
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Deflection and attraction is quite important. And let us start with something fairly simple. So it's just an endgame. It's an end of one of the studies. So Black hopes to save the game by attacking White's rook. Because White's rook cannot leave the eighth rank. Because then the bishop is hanging. And that will be a drawish endgame. So Re8 doesn't help, because black king keeps attacking White's rook. So what can we do? Both deflection and attraction in one move. We play Bf6+. So we attract Black's king to f6, also deflect black king from attacking our rook. And now we have a skewer-- remember the skewer-- a check. Black king moves. And we win the knight. So fairly simple, but I think quite instructive. Now we can look also at a more practical example. And while there's so many I wanted to share with you, let's start with one of the instructive games from no one less else but Bobby Fischer. Now we are looking at the game, Reshevsky-Fischer. It seems that White probably can hold. Because queen is under attack. And after check, white king can just escape. But because king is on the first rank, and there's no space, Black has typical blow, Qf2. It's both deflection and attraction. I would say probably deflection, because if White takes the queen, then Re1+. That's mate. And if White desperately tries to protect the rook, then after Re1, mate is still inevitable. It's fairly simple. There are many more complicated cases. But that's an important element, so using the weakness of the first rank or the last rank, if you attack the black king, to deflect the rook that defends this rank and to create mating threats. It's an important tool to learn, because it happens often in the queen endgames. Now we have other pieces, but you should probably not pay much attention to that. White pawn is near the promotion square. But it's pinned. Remember, it's pinned. And it's absolute pin, because we have a king on h8. So how can we remove Black's queen, deflect it from preventing our pawn from promotion, but also to attract this queen to a square where it could be damaged later? So there's a temporary sacrifice of the queen, Qd5+. Black takes our queen. And then we immediately recover our queen. We promote it on g8. And it's not just a check, because it's a skewer. You see how many themes and motifs being combined? It's important. Now black king moves. And we just take the queen. And we won. Something even more picturesque, just another study. So when we have another queen sacrifice, as the attraction more than deflection. It looks for a moment that Black solved all the problems. It has two extra pawns. The knight is protected by the pawn. And White attack seems to be running out of steam. No so fast. There is a trick here that includes skewer and at...
About the Instructor
At age 22, Garry Kasparov became the youngest world chess champion. After beating Bobby Fischer’s peak rating, he outranked his fiercest competitors for over twenty years. Now, Garry is ready to share the chess strategy that made him a six-time world champion. Through detailed lessons, including his favorite openings and advanced tactics, you will develop the instincts and philosophy to become a stronger player.
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Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov teaches you advanced strategy, tactics, and theory in 29 exclusive video lessons.
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