Attraction
Attraction is a tactic that draws the enemy king or queen onto a square where it can be checked, forked or mated, usually by offering a piece that cannot safely be refused.
Attraction pulls a valuable enemy piece, most often the king or the queen, to a square where it becomes the target. You offer a piece, usually with check or with a capture the piece cannot ignore, and the piece lands on the square you chose. From there a fork, a check or a mating net takes over.
It is the mirror of a deflection. A deflection sends a defender away from a job. An attraction brings a piece toward a square where it will be hunted. It also differs from a decoy in what it aims at: attraction is about the king or queen being exposed, while a decoy can lure any piece.
To find it, look for a rook or a minor piece that can give a check or attack the queen, and ask where the enemy must go to answer. If that square lies on a knight's fork square, or beside your pieces, the sacrifice may be worth it. The most common partner is a knight, because it attacks the new square from far away.
To defend, keep the queen away from the same lines as the king, and avoid putting both on squares a single knight can reach.
In the diagram the queen on b6 guards the back rank. White plays Rd8+ and the king on h8 cannot move, so the queen must take on d8. Then Nf7+ forks the king and the queen. The king goes to g8 and Nxd8 wins the queen for a rook.
Compare it with Decoy. A decoy is a tactic that lures an enemy piece onto a chosen square, usually with a sacrifice it has to accept, so that the piece can be forked, blocks one of its own lines or loses its old job.
Also worth reading is Pawn fork. A pawn fork is a pawn move that attacks two enemy pieces at once, one on each of the two diagonal squares ahead of the pawn, so only one of them can escape.
Also worth reading is Exchange sacrifice. An exchange sacrifice gives up a rook, worth five points, to capture a bishop or knight, worth three, in return for a positional or tactical gain that is worth more than the material lost.
Knowing "Attraction" helps most once you can spot it in a real game. A first lesson with George Li starts from your own games and finds the tactics you keep missing.
Related terms
A decoy is a tactic that lures an enemy piece onto a chosen square, usually with a sacrifice it has to accept, so that the piece can be forked, blocks one of its own lines or loses its old job.
A fork is a move that leaves one of your pieces threatening two enemy pieces together. Because the opponent gets only one turn to respond, something usually falls.
Deflection is the tactic of dragging an enemy defender off its post, often by a threat or an offered capture, so that what it was holding together falls apart.
A combination is a forcing sequence of moves, usually built from sacrifices and checks, in which every move leaves the opponent few or no choices and the sequence ends in a concrete gain such as mate or material.
Guides that go further
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