Are you ticklish? Being tickled becomes more annoying than fun. In Chess, it’s no different.
What is Tickle Tickle?
In Chess, Tickle Tickle is a simple tactic that’s used to gain a time advantage rather than a positional advantage.
The player can “tickle” the opponent by making two moves that are redundant since the move is made for no other reason other than to force the opponent to move a piece. This move is frequently repeated since the opponent will have to respond to the tickle consuming more time on the clock.
Example
You’ll see Grandmasters and even Super Grandmasters like Hikaru Nakamura use this tactic occasionally in Blitz and Bullet games.
In these time controls, every second matters and just 1 second can make the difference between winning and losing.
In this position, Hikaru is simply dominating with the White pieces and is in position to annoy is helpless victim.
If you liked learning about this, you might also like the full list of Chess tactics.