As mentioned, chess tactics involve focusing on short term actions. Usually meaning they are easy enough to be calculated in advance by a human player. The depth of the calculation depending on the player’s skill. Typically, the more permutations there are, the shallower the depth of those calculations become. In contrast, with fewer available options, players can consider long sequences of follow up chess game movements.

Simple one or two-move tactical actions used together are known as a combination. Tactical maneuvers can also be used to force sequences on opposing players. Theoreticians describe many basic tactical maneuvers and have given them names. For instance, zwischenzugs, pins, forks, skewers, undermining, batteries, discovered attacks/checks, deflections, overloading, decoys, sacrifices and interferences.

Forced variation that involves sacrificing that concludes in a tangential gain is also known as a combination. A ‘brilliant’ combination is considered the most beautiful and are admired by chess aficionados. Many chess exercises aimed at developing a players’ ability places a predetermined situation with a decisive combination to be found in a limited number of moves and challenges the person undergoing the exercise to find it.