The four key characteristics that will help you to identify potential tactical opportunities are:

1. King safety: Ask yourself the following questions: Is my King or my opponents King

vulnerable? Can my King or my opponents King be checked?

2. Undefended or poorly defended pieces: Are there weaknesses or weak points in any given
position. That can be a piece, a Pawn or a square.

3. Pieces that can be trapped: Can you trap one of your opponent’s pieces? Usually that happens
on your side of the board and is related to space.

4. Looking at the relationship between the pieces: Try to figure out e.g. are the Queen and the
King on the same file? Maybe I have a Rook that can take advantage of this. Check files, ranks,
diagonals or L-shaped pattern.

 Diagonals: Vulnerable to bishops and queen

 Files or ranks: Rooks and queen
 L-shaped: Knights