Fifty years ago, the idea that combinations might be classified logically had never entered anyone's mind. Writers concentrated on the positional side of chess, not because they thought combinations didn't matter, but because no way of discussing them had been thought of.
Thus, in any book dealing with positional play, you saw, and still see, notes like this interspersed: "White cannot yet play Re7 because of 28 ... Bxh2f, " etc. Thus the writers always tacitly admitted-even if they were not conscious of it-that every positional idea is subject to combinative sanctions. When the tyro came to apply the ideas, he would find himself overlooking combinations, and would wonder why the books were not helping him as much as he hoped.
The writers, however, could do nothing about it. If a player kept missing combina tions, all he could be advised to do was to keep on practicing-or he might play through the various combinations Uust given higgledy-piggledy) in excellent works such as Mason's Art of Chess. You could either see combinations or you could not-just as you can either juggle three oranges or you can't.
Then, first in German and later in English, came Emanuel Lasker, the thinker, with his Manual, in which he showed that combinations could be classified according to the kind of "motif' which gave rise to them. Lasker was followed by Tarrasch, the teacher; although an old man in the last years of his life, Tarrasch rapidly absorbed Lasker's ideas and turned them to his own ends in his famous book, The Game of Chess.
After studying the other articles in this series, most of my readers will now see fairly clearly the difference between positional and combinative ideas. But some of them, I am sure, would like to see it more clearly still.
Take, for example, an attack against the enemy <i1t. Here, the main positional principle is just this:
Superior force conquers.
Thus, if you have four pieces posted for attack on a castled <i1t, and the enemy has only three pieces on that wing (including the <i1t himself, who must be counted as a defender), that's a rough indication that an attack on that wing may have a chance of success.
But in any particular case, the actual possibilities and the methods of procedure must be determined by calculation based on visualized moves.
A famous writer began a book with the proposition that the "elements" of chess were force, space, and time. That is not true. Force, space, and time come into many things besides chess; the things that go to make up chess must be the things that go to make up the whole chess and nothing but the chess, and these are:
The units of force, the 64 points in which they operate, and the rules under which they operate.
If we look into these rules closely, we shall find that all combinative ideas are based directly on them-a thing never pointed out before, except by the present writer in 1938,
but less clearly then.
A huge majority of combinations, for instance, are based mainly on that simple little rule which we all take so much for granted while appreciating so little of its significance. This is Rule 4, clause iii (F.I.D.E. Code):
"The persons shall play alternately, one move at a time."
See what a huge gulf this fixes between chess and war, though chess was invented as a war game-in the days when war was comparatively civilized. In war, each side just makes as many moves as it can, while it can. The idea of fairness is ludicrous in war. But a contest of pure skill has to be fair hence the artificial rule of moving in turn and one thing at a time.
What do we deduce from this key rule? That we should at all times be on the look out for an opportunity of placing our oppo nent under the necessity of making two moves at once, and should avoid getting into such a jam ourselves. A vast majority of games of chess are won and lost by the operation of this rule.
Reuben Fine, in a praiseworthy effort to simplify chess for the tyro, goes to the length of saying, "All combinations are based on a double attack." This is not true, but what I want to emphasize just now is that it would be true with "most" substituted for "all."
There are four types of combination that fall decidedly under the heading of "double attack." They are:
1. "Geometrical" combinations (forks, pins, skewers).
2. Discovered attack. 3. Desperado combinations. 4. Ties-our short term for combina tions based on a tied piece, i.e., a piece defending another piece or defending, say, the back rank against mate. Lasker called them combinations based on the motif of
"function."
"Geometrical" Motif
Don't let "geometrical" worry you. It is merely the term applied to any attack by a single unit against two enemy units simulta neously. Very often, the three units con cerned stand on the corners of a triangle; with a �' the two forked units stand on two corners of a regular octagon; and with a pin, the three units stand in one straight line. A pin may be regarded as merely a particular case of a fork. The same applies to a "skewer," which occurs when two pieces are caught in the same line, with the more valuable one in front-instead of in the rear, as with a pin.
Picture a white )':! and a black � and ¥11 on the same rank or file, no obstructions, )':! never in danger of capture. If the )':! is in the middle, you have a fork. With ¥11 in the middle, a pin. With � in the middle, a skewer. But the effect is always the same: double attack on the � and Y/1, even though in two cases only one unit is actually en prise. There is another and much commoner kind of pin, where the front piece is not attacked at all, but only pinned. This is more of a "tie." We'll come to that.
Before passing on, let me give an ex ample of how easy it is to miss a fork more than one move ahead. The diagram shows the position just before the winner's final move in the game Keres-Smyslov, 1948 World Championship, second round.
Do you see any move here to induce Black to resign? The solution is 2Z h4! Bh6 (if 2Z .. Bxh4, 28. Qf4Bg5 29. Q3b8f) 28. Qg3 Kp 29. Bxf6 Rh7 30. @3f, etc.
Discovery Motif
Now for 2, Discovered Attack. Here one piece unmasks an attack by an ally, at the same time attacking something itself. Discovered check is one case of it. This is obviously a double attack.
Desperado Motif
That's easy. Now for 3, Desperado. To show that a desperado combination is also a double attack, let us take an example. See the diagram below, which occurs after the moves 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bd3? Nxe4 7. BxeZ
Black plays Z .. Nxf2! This is called a desperado combination, the � being the desperado-he is doomed to die, so he sells his life for a 1l: rather than give it away. It amounts to a double attack on ¥ff and .Q.. Never mind that both the attackers (¥fi and ltl) are en prise themselves. White can take only one of them under Rule 4(iii). You could not have a more striking example of the rule's importance over all others.
Tie Motif
No. 4, the Tie Combination, is essen tially different from all the other attacks, because one attack was already there and you merely add another to it. Suppose your
¥ff is bearing on an enemy !! supported by a �- No effect. All right, now attack the � with something else. Now you have a double attack, and it's effective. Your opponent needs to move the !! to free the �' and at the same time to move the � from danger. And again Rule 4(iii) inexorably bars him. A piece may be tied (and therefore vulnerable to a combination) in other ways than by having to defend an ally. It may be guarding a mating square, or a mating line, or it may be pinned, e.g., A pins � to ¥ff and then comes e5 hitting the � with great effect, unless the pinning A can be driven off before the blow falls.
There is no point in giving special ex amples of such everyday occurrences, but here is a more subtle example of a "tie" which I have never forgotten, because through not seeing it I missed tying for the Australian Championship at my first at tempt (Sydney 1926).
Purdy
C.L.R. Boyce After 22. N(e2)xd4
Two moves earlier, Black had em barked on a combination which he had now intended to continue with 22 ... bxa2! 23. Nb3Rh8(threatening ... Rxb3). Now Black saw that White would then play 24. Na 1,
and he reasoned that White would then have a piece for two fts and a surely defen sible position, seeing that Black himself is
not yet developed, while White has three pieces tastefully arrayed around his '31 for defense. So Black sadly played 22 ... Qxd4,
with a poor game but at any rate getting back his piece.
That was common sense, in its way, but chess is a game of romance.
Black missed that, after the moves in dicated up to 24. Na 1, he could reply by putting his ¥11 en priSe with 24 ... Qs3!!1t gives a forced win in all variations-which it would have been unnecessary4 to calculate in ad vance, the move 24... Qs3 being so obvi ously strong once seen.
But that's the catch, to see it. And that is what I have always concentrated on in writing about combinations-what you should look for in every position to avoid missing combinations.
The double attack here is, first, the masked attack on the mating square b 1, and then the second attack on the tied or pinned b- ft . By what kind of search would you be likely to see, several moves ahead, a move like this?
There are two different ways in which the combination might be found, and I suggest to each student that he pick the way
4 [Ed.: Ralph says that both Chess World 1948, p. 268, and the Hammond&Jamie son reprint give "unnecessary." He be lieves this word is required by the sense of the sentence. Experience has shown that H&J did little, if any, serious editing, of the original articles. While I may be in correct in what Purdy wants to say, I believe the word he should've used is "necessary," especially in light of his fol lowing paragraph. That is, seeing some of these combinations can be very difficult, hence it is often necessary to do hard calculation first. If, however, one is "lucky" to find the right move quickly, then the "hard" calculation becomes wmecessary.]
that appeals to him and employ it consis tently.
The first way would be the mechanical one of looking at all moves that threaten something (no matter how absurd-looking), just as one looks at all checks and all cap
tures. Thus, in addition to visualizing the obvious 24th move ... Qj6, also attacking the b- ft , you would force yourself to visual ize ... Qsz3 and ... Qs3, even though they put the ¥11 en priSe.
The second way would be always to look for any square, file, rank, or diagonal under a masked threat of mate. Here, the square b 1 is under a masked threat of mate from the t'! , and that should immediately suggest a sacrifice, since any material can be given up for mate.
The second way is preferable, because it is more logical. By forming such a habit you would soon develop a valuable intu ition in attack. But perhaps one should em ploy both methods.
I have now dealt briefly with the types of combination based on double attack. They are the ones in which Rule 4(iii) is the main ingredient, though actually it comes into almost all combinations.
Note: Of course other board games have the rule of alternate moving. The rea son that these other games do not have combinations comparable with those of chess is because the chess pieces have spe cial moves, and each piece a different one. One result is that most attacks in chess are nonreciprocal, i.e., the attacker attacks with out being himself en priSe to the thing at tacked, and this of course greatly multiplies the combinative possibilities.
The special moves of the chess pieces are part and parcel of all chess combina tions, whereas other rules come into some combinations and not into others, e.g., the rule that a piece cannot occupy or leap over an already-occupied square.