A decoy, also called attraction, forces an enemy piece onto a particular square so that your next move can hit it there. The target is very often the king, dragged out of shelter into a check, a fork or a mating net, but any piece can be decoyed. Every puzzle on this page involves a decoy, comes from a real game and is matched to your puzzle rating.
A deflection is about the square a piece leaves. A decoy is about the square it arrives on. When you deflect, you do not care where the defender goes, as long as it stops guarding. When you decoy, the destination is the whole point: the piece must land on exactly the square where your follow-up works.
To force it there, a decoy is almost always a sacrifice with check, or a capture that has to be taken back. The opponent accepts because the alternatives are worse, and only then finds out what the new square costs.
The king is the favourite target because the follow-up is so often decisive. A sacrifice on f7 or h7 pulls the king forward, and if it takes, a knight check may fork it with the queen, or a rook or queen may mate it on its new square. A sacrifice on the edge of the board can pull the king into a corner, where it runs out of squares.
When you see a fork or a mate that would work if the king stood one square further forward, look for a check that forces it there.
White: king g1, queen c4, bishop a3, knight e5, pawns a2, b2, c2, g2, h2. Black: king h8, rook a8, pawns a7, b7, g7, h7. White to move.
1.Nf7+ Kg8 is forced. 2.Nh6+ is a double check, from the knight and from the queen on c4 along the diagonal to g8, so the king must move: f8 is covered by the bishop, and f7 by the queen and the knight, which leaves only 2...Kh8. Now 3.Qg8+ gives up the queen. The king cannot take it, because the knight on h6 guards g8, so the only legal move is 3...Rxg8. That is the decoy: the rook has been pulled onto the last free square beside its own king. 4.Nf7 is checkmate, with the king smothered by its own rook and pawns.
This pattern has its own page, smothered mate puzzles, and it shows the decoy idea at its clearest: the queen sacrifice is pointless on its own and decisive once you see which square it fills.
Work backwards from the tactic that almost works. If a knight fork, a skewer or a mate would succeed with an enemy piece on a different square, name that square. Then ask which of your checks or captures forces the piece onto it, and whether the piece can refuse.
Decoys are uncommon in the easiest puzzles and turn up far more often as the puzzles get harder. That fits the idea: a decoy needs two steps, the lure and the follow-up, and both have to be seen before the first move.
The first is sacrificing when the opponent can decline: a decoy that is not a check or a necessary recapture usually leaves the opponent a choice. The second is checking only the capture you expect, when the king can step to another square instead. The third is forgetting that the decoyed piece may still defend something from its new square.
Before moving, say where you want the enemy piece to end up and why. If you are stuck, the first hint shows which piece to move, which is usually the sacrificing piece; the second shows the move. The full line appears beside the board after you solve. Decoys often set up forks and skewers, so train those alongside.
For mixed tactics at your level, use Puzzle Training. For speed, try Puzzle Storm, and to repeat a fixed set until the patterns are automatic, the Woodpecker Method. Elo Maxing rates you on every tactical motif and serves the weakest next, and Pattern Drill builds practice from the patterns your own games show you miss. To see which tactics your own games miss most, read how to find your chess weaknesses.
A tactic that forces an enemy piece, often the king, onto a square where your next move attacks, forks or mates it.
Yes. Decoy and attraction are two names for the same tactic.
A decoy pulls a piece onto a chosen square. A deflection pulls a piece away from a square it was guarding.
Because the opponent would not put a piece on a bad square voluntarily. A check or a capture that must be answered forces it there.