FIDE CM Kingscrusher has one goal of the course. And that is to make you a much stronger tactician than ever before in your life. You should be in a much better position by training with this course to create beautiful chess combinations on the chessboard which feature a wide range of patterns and demonstrate amazing calculation ability. In short, the goal of the course is to make you a very strong chess tactician and help you enjoy your chess to the absolute maximum.
This course has a structure which is essentially is “process” and “patterns”.
PROCESS: The Art of Chess Calculation
The “process” aspect is the art of chess calculation. Even if you didn’t know a single tactical pattern by name, you could still play amazing tactics just with great calculation which the course gives you a solid foundation in. Yes, even if you didn’t know your forks from your pins, the “Process” part of the course as in the art of calculation would still enable you to play great chess combinations using an entire orchestra of tactical patterns without even knowing their names.
But training yourself on patterns will enhance your art of calculation and you will be able to name the key tactical patterns which are important for searching them out to practice and discuss with others as well as prompt during your calculations.
“Process” is like the software of your chess mind. “Patterns” are like the Content for that software. You need both the software and the content to be really effective as a tactician!.
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PROCESS -><-PATTERNS
YOUR STRENGTHS OF POSITION (PLUSSES +’s) ====> MATCH WITH <=== (MINUSES -‘s)
DOWNSIDES OF OPPONENTS POSITION (FOR MAXIMUM DIFFERENTIAL between the PLUS AND MINUS)
BOTTOM UP APPROACHES >—-< TOP DOWN APPROACHES
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Patterns help feed the process of calculation. Your goal often is to create a maximum differential between the strengths of your position which can be realised from very strong calculation skills and the downsides of the opponent’s position which often requires a trained intuition and eye for potential downsides to ensure you are even aware combinational solutions might exist.
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PATTERNS: Tactical Patterns, Mating Patterns, Weakness of Position patterns.
The “patterns” aspect is divided into three key “pattern” areas:
Bold ones below represent really key and frequent visitors to most people’s games
Tactical Patterns (alphabetically)
These tactical patterns are very useful to practice and help internalise.
•Absolute Pin
•Advanced Pawn
•Annihilation of Defence
•Alekhine’s Gun
•Attraction
•Battery
•Blockading defensive resources
•Capture
•Capture the Defender
•Checks – gaining key tempo e.g. winning material via checks
•Clearance
•Combine and Win tactics
•Connected passed pawns
•Counterplay management move
•Counter Threat
•Cross-check
•Cross-pin
•Decoy
•Deflection
•Demolition of Pawns around opponent’s king
•Demolition of Pawn Structure
•Desperado
•Discovered Attack
•Domination
•Double Attack
•Double Check
•Draw Tactics
•Endgame Tactics
•Exchange sacrifice
•f2 (or f7) weakness
•Forcing Moves
•Fork
•Goal Hanging Tactics e.g. N on f5 (also see Thorn pawn)
•Greek Gift Sacrifice
•Indirect Defense
•Interference
•Intermediate move (synonym: Zuichenzug)
•King Aggression in Endgames
•King Chase
•Liberational tactics
•Opposition
•Overload the defender
•Weakness of last move
•Passed pawn creation
•Pawn-Fork
•Pawn Tactics
•Pawn Breakthrough
•Perpetual Attack
•Perpetual Check
•Pins – Absolute
•Pins – Relative
•Pins – Celebration
•Positional Tactic
•Prophylaxis move
•Removing King Escape Squares
•Rook lift
•Sacrifice (Positional)
•Sacrifice (calculated)
•Simplification
•Queen and Bishop Battery
•Quiet but killer move (greatly used in Alekhine combinations)
•Relative Pin
•Remove the Defender
•Sacrifice
•Simplification
•Situational Pin
•Soft spot sacrifice
•Strategic Crush tactic – e.g. locking in bishop, good knight
•Skewer
•Stalemate Tactics
•Tempo Tactics
•Thorn Pawns
•Threat making
•Trapped Piece
•Triangulation
•Two Rooks Battery
•Two Rooks on 7th Rank
•Under-promotion
•Weak Back-Rank
•Weakness of last move
•Windmill
•X-Ray
•X-Ray Attack
•X-Ray Defense
•Zugzwang
•Zwischenzug
Mating Patterns (alphabetically)
These mating patterns are useful to practice and help internalise.
•Anastasia’s mate
•Anderssen’s mate
•Arabian mate
•Back-rank mate
•Bishop and knight mate
•Blackburne’s mate
•Blind swine mate
•Boden’s mate
•Box mate (Rook mate)
•Combine and Win Mate
•Corner mate
•Cozio’s mate
•Damiano’s bishop mate
•Damiano’s mate
•David and Goliath mate
•Double bishop mate
•Dovetail mate
•Epaulette mate
•Fool’s mate
•Greco’s mate
•Hook mate
•Kill Box mate
•King and two bishops mate
•King and two knights mate
•Ladder checkmate
•Légal mate
•Lolli’s mate
•Max Lange’s mate
•Mayet’s mate
•Morphy’s mate
•Opera mate
•Pillsbury’s mate
•Queen mate
•Réti’s mate
•Smothered mate
•Support mate
•Suffocation mate
•Swallow’s tail mate
“Opponent Downsides” aka “Tactical Issues” aka “Tactical Liabilities” aka “Weakness of Position” Patterns
These help you intuitively identify if a combination may exist in the position.
•Awkward Pieces (trappable)
•King Safety Issues e.g. Back rank
•Loose pieces (unprotected)
•Overworked pieces
•Pieces away from King
•Tactical Liabilities in general
•Weaknesses in general
