Hi Worrell! True, I believe studying tactics such as this one can do wonders to improve one’s tactical understanding.

If Qf8 then white can simply move his rook to a safe square, Ie. Rxe5.

The point is that white is a piece ahead but his rook was pinned. But a move like Qf8 allows white to move the rook to safety. For this reason black actually resigned after white played Bd7.

That is true. At the end of the day the important thing is to understand the mechanism.

But what if Black now plays 41… Qf8?

It seems, white has no obvious attacking continuation after that?

P.S. Anyway, it would be nice to know next several moves in this game.

Hi Allan, yeah if black plays Qxd7 then that could be seen as a decoy. That is possibly another tactical idea I should add to the post. The way I see it though – I tend think of “decoy” as luring a piece away from a particular square. And I think of “attraction” as luring a piece towards a square.