Chess tactics for beginners, learned the hard way: week 24

Week 24 (June 17–22, 2024) was volume without direction. I played 44 rapid games, finished 22 wins, 20 losses and 2 draws, and went from 1009 to 1020. Stockfish found 101 blunders in my moves. When I sorted the key moments, they weren't deep: they were the basic chess tactics for beginners that every book starts with, a loose piece, a fork, a capture that removes a defender. I either missed them or walked into them.

The week in numbers

The headline number for me isn't the blunders. It's twelve: the number of games in which I had at least an 80 % chance of winning and didn't win. Ten of those were losses and two were draws by repetition. Put differently, half of my twenty losses came from positions I was winning. Fifteen of the twenty losses are logged as "game abandoned". Of my 141 mistakes and blunders, 80 came in the middlegame.

The week also had two very different days. Monday, June 17: twelve games, 8 wins and 4 losses. Wednesday, June 19: fifteen games, 4 wins, 10 losses and a draw, including five losses in a row (#583 to #587). With White I scored 12–8–2, with Black 10–12. My Zukertort setups did fine (Zukertort Variation 4–2, Zukertort Chigorin 3–0); the Giuoco Piano with Black went 1–3.

Three tactics, three lessons

The capture I didn't make: removing a defender

Game #563, White against omjarwal04 (984). I was winning, +4.11, and Black's bishop on f5 was within reach of my knight on h4.

r . . q k . . r
p p p . . . p p
. . n b p p . .
. . . p . b . .
Q . . P . . . N
. . P . P . . .
P P . N . P P P
R . . . K B . R

I played 12.Bb5, pinning the knight on c6 to the king. A pin is nice, but Stockfish says it cut my advantage from +4.11 to +0.79. The engine's move was 12.Nxf5. After 12...exf5, the pawn that used to sit on e6 and protect d5 has gone, and in the engine's line my queen goes to b5 and then takes on d5. That is the idea called removing the defender: you capture or deflect the piece that guards something, and the thing it guarded falls. I still won the game (game on Chess.com).

The knight that went where the queen could take it

Game #565, Black against C_Nash (1009), in a Semi-Slav. White was clearly better, +1.88, but nothing was lost yet.

r . b . . r k .
p p . . . p p p
. n p q p n . .
B . . . . . . .
. . . P . . . .
. . . B P N . .
P P . . . P P P
R . . Q . R K .

12...Na4 attacks the b2 pawn, which has no defender. It also puts my knight on a square White's queen can reach: the diagonal from d1 to a4 is completely empty. 13.Qxa4, and the evaluation jumped from +1.88 to +7.52. This is the simplest tactic of all, a loose piece, and the only defence is the habit of checking every square I move to: who attacks it, and who defends it? The engine's 12...Nbd7 just brings the knight back toward the centre (game on Chess.com).

Taking a pawn into a pawn fork

Game #566, White against Saunaboy1993 (990). I was clearly better, +1.75, and Black's pawn on c4 looked like a free gift.

r . . q k b r .
p p . b p p . .
. . p . . n . .
. . . . N . p p
Q P p P . . . P
. . P . P . B .
P . . N . P P .
R . . . K . . R

14.Ndxc4 takes the pawn. Black's answer is 14...b5, a pawn that attacks my queen on a4, which has no defender, and my knight on c4 at the same time. That's a fork. The queen has to move, and in the engine's line the knight falls (15.Qa6 bxc4). +1.75 became −0.54. Stockfish's 14.Qc2 steps the queen off the a4 square first. Again, I won this game later, in a messy fight where Stockfish counted 8 blunders for me and 9 for my opponent (game on Chess.com).

The lesson of the week

These are not advanced ideas. Removing the defender, loose pieces and forks are the first chapter of any list of chess tactics for beginners, and I'd read about all three. Knowing them wasn't the problem; looking for them was. The practical lesson I'm keeping: when I'm about to take something, I first ask "does a pawn of theirs attack two of my pieces after this?" When I'm moving a piece, I ask "can anything take it on its new square?" And when I have a knight or bishop that can capture a defender, I look at what that defender is guarding before I play anything else. Three questions, all about the board in front of me, none about theory.

All games this week

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