Decoy
Deflection's twin: instead of luring a defender away, lure a piece (often the king) onto a square where a follow-up tactic destroys it.
Key Ideas
- Force a piece onto a specific, seemingly reasonable square using a check or a sacrifice.
- The lured piece then becomes vulnerable to a fork, skewer, or discovered attack it couldn't otherwise be exposed to.
- Often used to drag the enemy king into the open where it can be checked repeatedly.
- The sacrificial material offered as bait is regained with heavy interest by the follow-up.
How It Works
Where deflection pulls a defender away from a square, decoy does the opposite: it lures a piece — often the king — onto a specific square, usually with a check or an irresistible-looking capture, purely so a follow-up tactic can hit it there.
The classic pattern is a sacrifice that gives check, forcing the king to a square it would never voluntarily choose, followed immediately by a fork or discovered attack that wins back far more material than was given up.
Because it frequently drags the king into the open, decoy is one of the most common engines behind spectacular-looking sacrificial attacks in both classical games and modern engine-approved brilliancies.
Famous Games
Sacrificial king-hunts
Many of chess history's most celebrated sacrificial attacks begin with a decoy check that drags the enemy king somewhere it never wanted to go.
Watch & Learn
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