Question about chess tactic - Overloading • page 1/2 • General Chess Discussion • lichess.org

Hi All!
Newbie to chess and going through the basic tactics lessons. I cant wrap my brain around OVERLOADING. All the lessons seem like im putting myself in positions where i'll just get taken. I dont get it? Maybe some one can explain it in a way I could understand or see how its useful? Thanks all!

Hi All! Newbie to chess and going through the basic tactics lessons. I cant wrap my brain around OVERLOADING. All the lessons seem like im putting myself in positions where i'll just get taken. I dont get it? Maybe some one can explain it in a way I could understand or see how its useful? Thanks all!

JuicyChickenNO1 edited

#2

A piece is overloaded when it's trying to do several things at the same time. For example, a queen defending two pieces in different sides of the board can only really defend one. I capture one and when your queen takes I take the other one for free, because the queen had to move and now no longer defends. If you identify that a piece is overloaded, then look for tactics that exploit that. Conversely, don't overload your own unless you know it's gonna be fine.

SimonBirch

#3

Thanks @JuicyChickenNO1 didn’t know about this

JuicyChickenNO1

#4

I just played the 'tutorial' on overloading and some of those positions have no business being that hard. I think they don't illustrate the principle in a simple enough way. Anyway, it's not all about taking pieces, but also other responsibilities like defending a critical square, blocking a pawn, preventing a mate...

CM TBest

#5

https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/issues/14219

New example suggestions welcome! And also which of the current examples are beter somewhere else or other thoughts about the section.

https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/issues/14219 New example suggestions welcome! And also which of the current examples are beter somewhere else or other thoughts about the section.

sausage4mash

#6

i didn't know lichess was on github thats cool

JuicyChickenNO1

#7

@TBest I'm not on GitHub, but these are my opinions about the current examples.

No. 3: I don't imagine most new players will be able to figure this one out. It took me a few tries because I thought it was about the bishops. It illustrates a very specific tactic very strongly, but I don't think new players will have use for it.

No. 4: The situation of your king looks scary at first glance, and I think this brings unnecessary complexity, because it invites you to think about how to deal with the threats instead of exploiting the overload (which is kinda abstract anyway).

No. 6: I understand that the two rooks are better than the queen, but there's no way new players will know that, and if they don't then they can't understand why the moves are good. If this situation happened to me in a game I probably wouldn't realize that trading the queen for the rooks is a good thing.

Here's some good stuff I think works great:

1.- The arrows in the first example convey how the principle works. I think there should be more examples with arrows, and they should show that sometimes it's about blocking pawns, preventing access to squares and so on.

2.- The first two examples are really stripped down and there's no missing the point. I think this is the key to make it work.

3.- If you take positions from overload puzzles in a low rating range, some should show really straightforward applications. However, they're also gonna be showing weird positions resulting from bad play. I guess a middle ground would be that the puzzles are used to get simple scenarios, but then those patterns are hand-crafted into a cleaner example.

@TBest I'm not on GitHub, but these are my opinions about the current examples. No. 3: I don't imagine most new players will be able to figure this one out. It took me a few tries because I thought it was about the bishops. It illustrates a very specific tactic very strongly, but I don't think new players will have use for it. No. 4: The situation of your king looks scary at first glance, and I think this brings unnecessary complexity, because it invites you to think about how to deal with the threats instead of exploiting the overload (which is kinda abstract anyway). No. 6: I understand that the two rooks are better than the queen, but there's no way new players will know that, and if they don't then they can't understand why the moves are good. If this situation happened to me in a game I probably wouldn't realize that trading the queen for the rooks is a good thing. Here's some good stuff I think works great: 1.- The arrows in the first example convey how the principle works. I think there should be more examples with arrows, and they should show that sometimes it's about blocking pawns, preventing access to squares and so on. 2.- The first two examples are really stripped down and there's no missing the point. I think this is the key to make it work. 3.- If you take positions from overload puzzles in a low rating range, some should show really straightforward applications. However, they're also gonna be showing weird positions resulting from bad play. I guess a middle ground would be that the puzzles are used to get simple scenarios, but then those patterns are hand-crafted into a cleaner example.

CM TBest

#8

What do you think about #2 ?

I didn't like that it's only 1 required move and you don't really get to see that the knight is overworked. At the surface it's "just" a pawn fork.

What do you think about #2 ? I didn't like that it's only 1 required move and you don't really get to see that the knight is overworked. At the surface it's "just" a pawn fork.

JuicyChickenNO1

#9

@TBest said in #8:

What do you think about #2 ?

Yeah I didn't want to nitpick, but I had stuff to say about it too. If I had to choose between keeping it or throwing it away I guess I would keep it, just because I think examples should be simple. If I wanted to improve it, I think it would be better with the knight defending a piece on d7, and you attacking that piece with a rook or knight or something. And then have some arrows to show the mate threat and the knight defending both the mate and the piece on d7.

From a user psychology perspective, I think the problem is that it doesn't flow from the principles shown in the first one. In the first one the two responsibilities were defending a piece and defending another one. The second one is defending a square and defending another one, but in order to have common ground with the first one it should be defending a piece and defending a square. Then it could follow defending a piece and blocking a pawn from advancing, and then you could go to town and have more abstract ones that don't involve defending a piece.

@TBest said in #8: > What do you think about #2 ? Yeah I didn't want to nitpick, but I had stuff to say about it too. If I had to choose between keeping it or throwing it away I guess I would keep it, just because I think examples should be simple. If I wanted to improve it, I think it would be better with the knight defending a piece on d7, and you attacking that piece with a rook or knight or something. And then have some arrows to show the mate threat and the knight defending both the mate and the piece on d7. From a user psychology perspective, I think the problem is that it doesn't flow from the principles shown in the first one. In the first one the two responsibilities were defending a piece and defending another one. The second one is defending a square and defending another one, but in order to have common ground with the first one it should be defending a piece and defending a square. Then it could follow defending a piece and blocking a pawn from advancing, and then you could go to town and have more abstract ones that don't involve defending a piece.

HeyDoomsday

#10

@JuicyChickenNO1 Thanks for the reply! This is definitely clearing things up for me and making me feel less stupid! I appreciate the detailed response. You're the No. 1 Juiciest Chicken! Haha

Also, any words of wisdom for someone just learning, so I may one day be as good as a JuicyChicken? Right now I'm a frozen chicken nugget in the corner of the freezer.

@JuicyChickenNO1 Thanks for the reply! This is definitely clearing things up for me and making me feel less stupid! I appreciate the detailed response. You're the No. 1 Juiciest Chicken! Haha Also, any words of wisdom for someone just learning, so I may one day be as good as a JuicyChicken? Right now I'm a frozen chicken nugget in the corner of the freezer.