The Heart of Tactics: the Double Attack

Some favorite forks, and a rumination on whether all tactics are double attacks

Once, when doing commentary with Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan, he casually mentioned that all tactics are a form of double attack. I froze as I tried to figure out whether I agreed. As it turned out, author and GM Yuri Averbakh (1922-2022) also shared the opinion. Depending on how expansive your idea of double attack is, many other motifs fit the bill. A pin is an attack on a valuable piece through a weaker piece. A skewer is an attack on a weaker piece in the way of a more valuable piece. Both are dual threats.

My new puzzle book also points to the theme’s ubiquity. The double attack chapter in PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION is the longest chapter, and double attack motifs recur constantly throughout PLAC, especially in the distraction chapter.

Naming tactics effectively ties into pattern recognition. Preferences may differ from player to player. We want to creatively make use of patterns in a wide variety of positions, an argument for using fewer names. That’s one reason I conflated the “Removal of the Guard”, “Distraction”, “Attraction” and “Decoy” into one chapter. But having too few categories may make it harder for the patterns to pop out in the first place.

I am usually biased in favor of expanding our chess vocabularies. This was a hot topic of conversation in my recent perpetual podcast appearance with Ben Johnson, where we discussed my term “Zap”, short for “checkmate threat.” Cliff notes¹: Zaps are good.

Speaking of chess Z-words, I just got the Zwischenzug! course by WIM Natasha Regan and Matt Ball. I was impressed by some of the terms they introduced to me like “mutual en prise” or "“ZwischenSchach”, which I previously encompassed under the banner of “in-between move.” I almost immediately used one of the new terms in a chess lesson. But is a Zwischenzug also a double attack? Zwischenzugs straddle the space between calculation and tactics, so you could say they’re doing double duty.

The quintessential double attack, the one that makes my heart fly no matter how many times I see it, is the classic Reti position. It’s so elegant, I ordered a custom made jacket out of it. I can’t imagine a better position for the outfit. If you think of one, put it in the comments.

The famous Reti study. White to Move and Draw

If you’ve never seen this position you’re in for a treat. The basic solution is in the footnotes². I’ll also do a video on this one. I want to break it down for Fabian so he can appreciate its beauty as much as I do. I already showed it to a chess camp he attended this summer.

So many puzzles are in one photo: Do you recognize the position? Do you see my “Reti-to-Wear” jacket? Do you see Fabian? Photo Jamaal Dozier / the Gift of Chess

My latest video features some of my other favorite double attacks, including the infamous scholastic tactic, the “Fork Trick.”

If most good chess moves are double attacks, maybe it’s a sign from Caissa that multi-tasking isn’t so bad after all. What are you doing while reading this post?

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But you should definitely listen to the full episode. There’s even a double PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION book giveaway! https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2024/1/2/ep-363-jennifer-shahade-on-playing-like-a-champion-building-confidence-and-what-zapping-is-in-chess

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1. Kg7! This move is essentially, a double attack. White approaches the c6 pawn and the h-pawn simultaneously. After …Kb6 2. Kf6 and …Kxc6 or …h4 allow the picturesque 3. Ke5!, the position in the photo from the chess camp.