A move, the lure, forces an enemy defender away from a square or line it was guarding. A second move then captures on the square that the defender no longer covers.
Cite this entryChessGrammar (2026). Deflection. In: ChessGrammar: A reference for chess concepts, Tactics grammar, edition v3.0. Entry cg:deflection@1. https://chessgrammar.com/motifs/tactics/deflection
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Start position
the definition and its boundary
Ra6+
The rook moves to a6 with check along the sixth rank. The black king on h6 is the only piece guarding the pawn on g5. Every king move leaves h6 and abandons g5. The block Rf6 loses the rook to Rxf6+. After Kg7, hxg5 takes the pawn. The defender is forced away and the pawn it guarded is lost.
8/5r2/7k/6pp/7P/5PK1/R7/8 w - - 0 59Ra6+
Deflection and Attraction differ in what the final capture takes. Deflection wins the target that the defender left behind. Attraction captures the displaced piece on its arrival square. In the counter-example shown here, the knight blocks the check, so the king need not move, g5 remains defended and neither motif forms.
The rook on f7 is replaced by a knight. Ra6+ is still check, but the knight on f7 reaches d6 and blocks the sixth rank. The king never has to move, g5 stays guarded, and nothing is deflected.
8/5n2/7k/6pp/7P/5PK1/R7/8 w - - 0 59the variants
The forms below are grouped by the feature they describe. A feature may have no separate named form. Open a form to read its criteria and see its examples.
Deflection Checkcheck deflection
The lure gives check.
Overloaded Guard Deflectionexploitation of overload
The defender was already overloaded before the lure.
Deflection of a Line Defenderline-guard diversion
The deviated defender is a slider.
forms the literature names but the taxonomy does not carry as entries of their own
Deflection from a Key Squarekey-square diversion · deflection from a rank
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
Double Deflectiontwin diversion
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
the corpus
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