Cool Chess Tactics

People who play chess may have heard of "positional" chess and "tactical" chess.

I don't claim to know anything about the former; I am currently trying to figure out a practical way to learn.
I do know a LITTLE something of the latter, however, and am minded to showcase a few of the more intriguing tactics I've seen used online.

Related submissions and/or discussion welcome.

What threat is an imperiled Rook to a player willing to give up a Queen instead?

To appreciate this one, you need to understand that the little pieces can undergo a process called "Queening" once they advance far enough and become VERY dangerous indeed. It is sometimes worth sacrificing a valuable piece, or even the sole non-king piece remaining, just for the chance to thwart that from happening.

Moving the knight sitting on the square h3 to the square f4 wins the game for white.

In the following position, white is forced to take Black's knight if he gives check, forced to take it with the only pawn he can. Unfortunately, this will effectively create an impasse able wall for white's king, a wall of his own same-color pieces, so that if Black can line up a canon from, say, a TOWER ...

You might wonder, examining the following, "Why does he waste time attacking the King first? Why not take the piece he's going after directly?".

The answer is that he's going after TWO pieces, not just one, and can only get the second if he "pins" it by making it so the King would be hit if that 2nd piece tried to move out the way.

Move just before this series begins is the white Queen at d, NOT e1, moving to make the position seen in the first scan.

Sacrifice a rook to make your knights win the game.

Queen Sacrifice enables to see the power of bishop pair and pawn cooperating.

White King is being attacked by Black knight.

Pawn cannot capture the black knight; this would expose the white King to attack by the black rook.

This illustrates both

1. the power of pins in chess (the pawn that would otherwise take the attacking black knight is effectively "pinned" to the spot it is sitting on by the rook that would be able to attack the white King if it weren't there)
and
2. the surprising amount of area bishop and knight working as a pair can actually cover.

Arguably this also illustrates the power a knight wields, i.e. that of unblock able checks; no amount of men can shield an opposing King from it.

Winner-takes-all chess race ...

Going by the rankings, the knight here was fleeter than many people thought!

Low point value makes pawns all but useless, right?

Woe to the man who dares think that ...

Position in chess can trump formally ranked power ...

This is actually pretty cool.

This is one of the few instances readers will see here from me of tactics that DON'T necessarily result in checkmate, but are nonetheless surprising and effective enough to garner attention:

Originally posted by Jmanghan
This is actually pretty cool.

Hey, thanks man!

Yeah, I strive for truth in advertising as a general rule ...

Send me a message some time; it won't be soon, but, in the future, when I have the time, we might play a few games together.

Pawn-checking sacrifice wins a rook:

Black to move and win if he promotes his pawn to a knight.

He likely loses otherwise.

Most of these feature somewhat cool plays; the following relates an instance of a very UNcool play where someone actually hacked chess.com, and ...

Well, maybe you'll be able to detect what happened in this next series of 20 (actually, 23) ...