Removing the defender

Whenever you want to win something that is protected, count its protectors. If there is exactly one, the target is only as safe as that protector, and the protector becomes the real target. Take it, chase it, or trade it off, and the piece it guarded is left on its own.

The defender can be anything: a pawn guarding a knight, a knight guarding a bishop, a rook guarding the last rank. Capturing it often costs you something, such as a minor piece, but the recapture leaves the weakness behind. What matters is that the recapturing piece or pawn does not also take over the old defender's job.

This idea works for squares as well as pieces. A defender that covers a mating square, or an entry square for your rook, is just as good a target as one that guards a piece.

To defend against it, look at your pieces that carry a single heavy duty and ask what happens if they disappear. Give key pieces a second protector, and be wary of structures where one pawn holds everything together.

In the diagram White plays Bxc6. The knight on c6 is the only piece protecting the pawn on e5. Black recaptures with dxc6, but now e5 has no defender, and Nxe5 wins the pawn while attacking the pawn on c6.

A neighboring idea is Overloading. Overloading is a tactic against a single defender that has two jobs at once, so that when you win one of the things it guards, it can no longer protect the other.

Compare it with Double attack. A double attack is one move that creates two threats at once, whether they come from a single piece or from two, and whether they aim at pieces or at checkmate.

Compare it with Interference. Interference is a tactic in which you land a piece on the line joining two enemy pieces that depend on each other, cutting their connection so that one of them can be won.

Knowing "Removing the defender" 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

• Deflection

  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.

• Double attack

  A double attack is one move that creates two threats at once, whether they come from a single piece or from two, and whether they aim at pieces or at checkmate.

• Pin

  A pin ties a piece to its square: a bishop, rook or queen attacks it, and stepping aside would expose a more valuable piece standing behind it on the same line.

Guides that go further

• How to choose a chess coach

  What to decide first, the questions to ask, what a first lesson should show and the red flags to avoid.

• How much does chess coaching cost?

  Published rates for private, group and subscription chess coaching, with the source and the date of each.

• The first lesson

  A game review, a read on your level and a written study plan from George Li.