FIDE CM Kingscrusher has one goal of the course. And that is to make you a much stronger tactician than ever before in your life. You should be in a much better position by training with this course to create beautiful chess combinations on the chessboard which feature a wide range of patterns and demonstrate amazing calculation ability. In short, the goal of the course is to make you a very strong chess tactician and help you enjoy your chess to the absolute maximum.

This course has a structure which is essentially is "process" and "patterns".

PROCESS: The Art of Chess Calculation

The "process" aspect is the art of chess calculation. Even if you didn't know a single tactical pattern by name, you could still play amazing tactics just with great calculation which the course gives you a solid foundation in. Yes, even if you didn't know your forks from your pins, the "Process" part of the course as in the art of calculation would still enable you to play great chess combinations using an entire orchestra of tactical patterns without even knowing their names.

But training yourself on patterns will enhance your art of calculation and you will be able to name the key tactical patterns which are important for searching them out to practice and discuss with others as well as prompt during your calculations.

"Process" is like the software of your chess mind. "Patterns" are like the Content for that software. You need both the software and the content to be really effective as a tactician!.

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PROCESS -><-PATTERNS

YOUR STRENGTHS OF POSITION (PLUSSES +'s) ====> MATCH WITH <=== (MINUSES -'s)

DOWNSIDES OF OPPONENTS POSITION (FOR MAXIMUM DIFFERENTIAL between the PLUS AND MINUS)

BOTTOM UP APPROACHES >----< TOP DOWN APPROACHES

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Patterns help feed the process of calculation. Your goal often is to create a maximum differential between the strengths of your position which can be realised from very strong calculation skills and the downsides of the opponent's position which often requires a trained intuition and eye for potential downsides to ensure you are even aware combinational solutions might exist.

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PATTERNS: Tactical Patterns, Mating Patterns, Weakness of Position patterns.

The "patterns" aspect is divided into three key "pattern" areas:

Bold ones below represent really key and frequent visitors to most people's games

Tactical Patterns (alphabetically)

These tactical patterns are very useful to practice and help internalise.

Absolute Pin
Advanced Pawn
Annihilation of Defence
Alekhine’s Gun
Attraction
Battery
Blockading defensive resources
Capture
Capture the Defender
Checks - gaining key tempo e.g. winning material via checks
Clearance
Combine and Win tactics
Connected passed pawns
Counterplay management move
Counter Threat
Cross-check
Cross-pin
Decoy
Deflection
Demolition of Pawns around opponent's king
Demolition of Pawn Structure
Desperado
Discovered Attack
Domination
Double Attack
Double Check
Draw Tactics
Endgame Tactics
Exchange sacrifice
f2 (or f7) weakness
Forcing Moves
Fork
Goal Hanging Tactics e.g. N on f5 (also see Thorn pawn)
Greek Gift Sacrifice
Indirect Defense
Interference
Intermediate move (synonym: Zuichenzug)
King Aggression in Endgames
King Chase
Liberational tactics
Opposition
Overload the defender
Weakness of last move
Passed pawn creation
Pawn-Fork
Pawn Tactics
Pawn Breakthrough
Perpetual Attack
Perpetual Check
Pins - Absolute
Pins - Relative
Pins - Celebration
Positional Tactic
Prophylaxis move
Removing King Escape Squares
Rook lift
Sacrifice (Positional)
Sacrifice (calculated)
Simplification
Queen and Bishop Battery
Quiet but killer move (greatly used in Alekhine combinations)
Relative Pin
Remove the Defender
Sacrifice
Simplification
Situational Pin
Soft spot sacrifice
Strategic Crush tactic - e.g. locking in bishop, good knight
Skewer
Stalemate Tactics
Tempo Tactics
Thorn Pawns
Threat making
Trapped Piece
Triangulation
Two Rooks Battery
Two Rooks on 7th Rank
Under-promotion
Weak Back-Rank
Weakness of last move
Windmill
X-Ray
X-Ray Attack
X-Ray Defense
Zugzwang
Zwischenzug

Mating Patterns (alphabetically)

These mating patterns are useful to practice and help internalise.

Anastasia's mate
Anderssen's mate
Arabian mate
Back-rank mate
Bishop and knight mate
Blackburne's mate
Blind swine mate
Boden's mate
Box mate (Rook mate)
Combine and Win Mate
Corner mate
Cozio's mate
Damiano's bishop mate
Damiano's mate
David and Goliath mate
Double bishop mate
Dovetail mate
Epaulette mate
Fool’s mate
Greco's mate
Hook mate
Kill Box mate
King and two bishops mate
King and two knights mate
Ladder checkmate
Légal mate
Lolli's mate
Max Lange's mate
Mayet's mate
Morphy's mate
Opera mate
Pillsbury's mate
Queen mate
Réti's mate
Smothered mate
Support mate
Suffocation mate
Swallow's tail mate

"Opponent Downsides" aka "Tactical Issues" aka "Tactical Liabilities" aka "Weakness of Position" Patterns

These help you intuitively identify if a combination may exist in the position.

Awkward Pieces (trappable)
King Safety Issues e.g. Back rank
Loose pieces (unprotected)
Overworked pieces
Pieces away from King
Tactical Liabilities in general
Weaknesses in general