Deflection sacrifice

A deflection sacrifice offers a piece or pawn to pull an opposing piece away from an important defensive duty. That duty may be protecting the king, guarding another piece, controlling a square needed to give checkmate, an attack on the king with no legal answer, or blocking another piece's path. After the defender accepts the offer, it stops performing its original task and the decisive follow-up becomes possible.

Deflection is not limited to capturing the defender. The defender is often compelled to move by an offer that is too costly to refuse. For example, a defending piece may be drawn into a capture and leave a more valuable piece unprotected. The offered piece or pawn is the cost of the sacrifice; the abandoned defensive duty is the objective.

Calculation sequence

1. Identify the piece holding the defense together and define its exact duty.
2. Find a capture, a check, meaning a direct attack on the king, or another threat that makes it leave that duty.
3. Calculate both acceptance and refusal of the offer.
4. Verify the follow-up and every available reply after the deflection.

The idea often appears inside a combination, a calculated sequence of connected moves, and may lead to checkmate or winning pawns or pieces. It should not be confused with merely attracting a piece to a bad square: in deflection, the essential feature is the specific duty that the piece stops performing.