The Most Important Tactical Pattern In Chess
Recently I was explaining a concept of a chess X-ray to one of my students. I don't need to do it too often since surprisingly, most chess players, even quite inexperienced ones, know about it.
So, I described chess X-rays as a situation where a long ranged piece (a queen, rook, or bishop) attacks an opponent's piece (usually a king or a queen), through a bunch of other pieces (both of your opponent's and your own). Or, how Chess.com's lesson puts it: "The X-ray brings to mind superman's ability to see through objects. A piece is able to mount an attack even if there is another piece in the way."
A good example of a classical X-ray is the following game:
A very similar combination happened in the recently concluded 45th Chess Olympiad:
While I was explaining an X-ray and showing examples to my student, I suddenly realized that practically all chess combinations are based on an X-ray! Think about it: one of the first traps we learn in chess, when we punish an opponent for copying our moves by a deadly discovered check is a perfect example of an X-ray!
How about a pin:
Or a skewer:
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that almost all chess combinations are actually just a subset of the same X-ray pattern. It took me almost 50 years of playing chess to understand this simple thing!
While it may sound like little semantics, in reality this concept allows us to better understand the nature of chess combinations. Think about it: if most of chess combinations are just a subset of an X-ray and an X-ray is the situation where our pieces are pointed at the opponent's even if there are many other pieces between them, it means that by simply pointing our pieces toward the opponent's counterparts we increase our chance for a tactical strike.
As an example of this theory, let me show you another game player by Azerbaijani IM Gulnar Mammadova in the 45th Chess Olympiad:
The move 13...Rg8 sets up a "Chekhov's gun". In one of my old articles, we discussed the famous "Alekhine's gun," but what is "Chekhov's gun?" Famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov insisted that "if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired some time later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story." The same way, all X-rays placed in this game came into play later on. An X-ray netted White the black rook on a8 early in the game. But can you find how Black used her g8-rook later in the game?
Of course White didn't fall into this simple trap, so Black set up another one. Can you find it?
Even though White avoided this pitfall as well, Black's attack is unstoppable:
This brilliant game by Mammadova clearly illustrates the main idea of this article: if you want to create a position rich in various tactical patterns, point your pieces at your opponent's king even if there are many other pieces standing between them!
