Deflection Chess Puzzles

A deflection forces a defending piece away from a square or duty it needs to stay on — usually with a check, a capture, or a threat it must respond to — so that once it moves, something it was guarding becomes vulnerable. It's a close cousin of decoy and interference tactics: the key is making the defender's move mandatory, not optional.

Objective

Find the forcing move that drags a key defending piece away from the square or duty it's currently protecting.

Featured Puzzle

Find the forcing move that drags a key defending piece away from the square or duty it's currently protecting.

Understanding Deflection

Look for a piece that's doing double duty — defending two things at once, or guarding the one square that's holding your combination together — then find the forcing move that makes it abandon that post. If the defender has to move (not just prefers to), the deflection works.