Attraction

Attraction (also called decoy in English) is the tactic of luring an enemy piece to a bad square. Once it arrives, the new position exposes it to a follow-up tactic such as a fork, skewer, or mate. If deflection is "push the defender off its post," attraction is "drag the piece into a trap."

This is a real game (White to move). White throws in Rxd6+ (capturing the bishop with check). When Black recaptures (...Kxd6 - declining just drops a piece), the king is dragged onto the bad square d6. Now Nc4+ is a fork, hitting the king (d6) and the e3-rook at once. Black must answer the check, and after ...Ke6 White takes the rook with Nxe3. That is attraction: lure an enemy piece onto a square you choose, then hit it there.

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How often does it show up

Of the 212,300 puzzles in this site's database, 10,059 (4.7%) carry the attraction tag, and 59.4% of them also carry the sacrifice tag. For deflection the same figure is 11.7%. The gap fits the distinction this page draws: pushing a defender away can often be done with a threat, while pulling a king or a queen onto a square it does not want usually costs material. Co-tagging records what appears together, not the order of moves.

The sequences run long. 56.5% are tagged long against 20.0% short, and only 6.5% fall below rating 1200 next to 23.8% for the fork. So the bait is rarely the whole solution. 30.8% also carry the fork tag, against 9.8% for the pin and 5.7% for the discovered attack: drag the king or queen to the wrong square, then hit it and something else at once.

What Attraction Is

You sacrifice or offer a piece to force the enemy piece (often king or queen) to move to a specific square. Once it arrives there, a new tactic strikes.

Two-stage mechanism:

1. Use a friendly piece as bait - usually a sacrifice. Place it where the enemy must capture (or accept something worse).
2. Exploit the new position of the capturing enemy piece - a fork, skewer, or mate now hits the piece on the bait's square.

In English chess literature, attraction and decoy are used almost interchangeably. Some books use decoy narrowly for king-luring and attraction broadly for any piece, but casual usage merges them.

Difference from Deflection

Both force an enemy piece to move. Deflection cares about the square it leaves; attraction cares about the square it lands on.

Why Attraction Gets Missed

1. Sacrifice aversion - attraction usually requires a sacrifice. Giving up a rook or queen feels wrong at first.
2. Insufficient depth - the line runs bait → capture → tactic on the new square → decisive material gain, and its length varies by position. Look only one move ahead and the sacrifice seems like "just a loss."
3. Misjudging "must capture" - attraction works only if not capturing is worse. If the opponent can decline the bait cheaply, there is no attraction.

Signs Attraction May Be Available

1. The enemy king is one or two squares from a mating pattern of yours - lure the king onto that square and the mate follows.
2. The enemy queen can be made to capture on a square your knight can fork - lure it there and the fork follows.
3. You can place a must-capture bait piece - declining it loses even more.

Example: Attraction → Mate (Concept)

Common in endgames.

• Black king: on a safe-looking square
• White uses a check chain to drag the king toward a mate square

Within such a sequence, the checks whose purpose is to steer the king onto a particular square are the attractions. Not every check that merely chases the king counts as one.

The basic mating techniques (queen + king, rook + king, bishop + knight) also involve herding the king into a target zone, and the instinct you build here carries over to those finishes.

How to Defend Against Attraction

When facing attraction threats:

1. Check whether you can decline the bait - if declining costs less than what follows the capture, refuse the bait.
2. Make the bait's square safe for the piece that would capture - neutralize the follow-up tactic in advance.
3. Keep king and queen off squares where a lure would work - a solid pawn shield after castling helps.

Checklist

Quick scan for "is attraction available?":

• Can an enemy king or queen be drawn onto a square where my follow-up tactic works? (a king usually has to be a square or two away; a queen only needs to be able to capture there, at any distance)
• Can I plant a must-capture bait on that square?
• Sacrifice cost < post-attraction payoff?
• Does the follow-up tactic actually land cleanly from the new arrival square? (Fork, skewer, mate.)

Related Tactics

• Deflection - attraction's mirror, focused on the square the piece leaves.
• Fork - a common attraction follow-up, especially royal forks.
• Clearance - also "use forced movement," but to open your own line.
• Back-Rank Mate - attraction often appears in mate sequences here.

FAQ

Q. Does attraction always require sacrifice? Usually, because the enemy takes the bait only when refusing costs more. The exception is a check: it forces a response by itself, so a check that steers the king needs no sacrifice.

Q. Are attraction and decoy the same? In English, attraction and decoy are used almost interchangeably. Some authors reserve decoy for king-luring and attraction for general piece-luring, but casual usage doesn't distinguish.

Q. An effective way to learn attraction? Start with attraction → mate combo puzzles - short, visual, two-move sequences. Then attraction → fork. Finally attraction → skewer. Each stage trains the question "what tactic works if I can lure the piece here?"

Q. Why are attraction + fork combinations so powerful? Because they let you place the enemy piece directly on the fork square. Most forks rely on the piece already being there; attraction lets you put it there. Setting up a fork this way is a common starting point for combinations, including mating ones.

References

• Lichess, puzzle theme Attraction (the source of this site's puzzle tags). https://lichess.org/training/themes
• Statistics produced by scripts/analyze-theme-stats.mjs --theme attraction; the run is recorded in docs/data/attraction-stats.md.

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On Chess Motif Stats, attraction is tracked as one of 53 separate motifs. Practice finding the target square and calculating what happens after the opponent moves there. Signed-in results update this motif's SM-2 review schedule.

Start training: Attraction Training

Related: Deflection · Fork · All tactics