The Decoy: Luring a Piece Onto a Fatal Square

Sometimes the winning tactic is almost there: a knight fork that would work if the king stood one square over, or a mate that needs the queen on a different square. A decoy fixes that. You sacrifice something on the square you want the enemy piece to occupy, and the capture drags it there.

The sacrifice has to be hard to refuse. Usually it comes with check, so the king must take, or it captures something valuable, so that declining leaves the opponent too far behind. Then the follow-up has to win back more than you gave.

The most common follow-ups are a fork, a pin or a mating pattern. A rook sacrifice that pulls the king onto a knight-fork square is a classic. So is a sacrifice on the back rank that pulls the king into a mating net.

Work backwards from the tactic you want. If you see a fork or a mate that fails only because a piece is on the wrong square, ask which square it needs to be on and whether you can sacrifice something there.

Kings are the most frequent target because they are easiest to force: a check on a square next to the king usually has to be captured by the king itself. Queens are the second favourite, because a queen that captures can often be forked or pinned on its new square.

Also look at what the sacrifice does to the defence besides moving the target. A sacrifice that captures something with check, as in the example below, costs less than it looks, because you get material back on the spot while dragging the king where you want it.

Decoys start with giving material away, and most players do not consider moves that lose a piece on the spot. Training yourself to look at checking sacrifices, especially next to the enemy king, is the fix. The decoys you miss in your own games are the ones worth drilling.