How do you set up combinations ?

So many times I think "Ah! I've got his queen now!" Only to find I was relying impetuously on one of my pieces who was in a great position to take queen. BUT I did not have that second or third piece in place to nail it down, to corner it. How do you learn to SET UP combinations that are killers? I must be only a defensive player as I feel I am in a jungle of chess pieces looking either for a way to avert an attack or trying to find some way to capture an important piece. I rarely can get that important piece because I don't have two or three pieces in place to trap my opponent. I don't have combinations in place. One piece alone just doesn't do it. How do you learn to have those killer combinations? Stwils

I feel your pain.  I've struggled with that problem for awhile.  I think you need to change your outlook on piece placement, however.  The key to winning is strategic rather than tactical placement of your pieces.  In other words, rather than placing your pieces for the purpose of nailing down that killer trap, you should place your pieces where they best complement your long term plans, which are largely determined by your opening and pawn structure.  My feeling is that if your pieces are in their best placement for your strategy, the tactics will present themselves and you just have to recognize them.

you kind of answered your own question when you said

"i did not have that second or third piece to nail it down"

you should simply enough activate as many pieces as possible, preferably all of them before you start the attack. that is true for any opening. why attack with one piece when you can attack with 7 i think this is something chessplayers doesnt think over since you only move 1 piece at a time. just put them on natural places. rooks on open files, bishops on diagonals centralised knights and so on.

What Tiger said is right.  You should consider how you can set-up an attacking formation using and retaining initiative where possible.  Developing moves that force the opponent to defend will always  help you get into a good position from which you will naturally find many ways to attack.

I wouldn't go out with the intention of trapping your opponent's pieces.  Just continually improve your position by placing your pieces in good places and his position will eventually crumble.  Trapping his pieces is tactics that usually comes when he overlooks your well placed pieces but in general will require him to make a mistake.

Develop your pieces fast and towards the center then sacrifice one and a combination will be sure to turn up. That worked for Tal at least.

Yes you need a good position and well coordinated and develeped pieces to win any game, especially for combinations. Or you need your opponent to make an error allowing you to hit them with a nice tactical combination.I find combo's come easier when my opponent doesnt play the opening solidly and allows my pieces the chance to work together in the attack. I will show you what i mean in a game i play against a weak pc opponent of maybe 1500 strength if that.

if you compare it to football tactics are accuracy and control over the ball while strategy is placement of players, positional play and all that stuff. you can outsmart barcelona with great strategy and get 10 times as many good chances to score as them but if you have no accuracy or ballcontrol you cant even beat the kids at your school

strategy is not as hard as it seems. i dont know what openings you play but you should try to get some litterature that explains the ideas and plans in your openings, resulting pawnstructures and stuff like that. ideally some explanation of resulting endgames but that seems rare to find. you also should look up middlegames. personally i love jeremy silmans reassess your chess but im not suprised if there is some good material at chess.com somewhere

Normally for combinations to come about there is a build up of tension, if you are simplifying at every opportunity (like you seem to say) you reduce the chances of finding one. Leave the pieces on the board and keep your eyes peeled.

I can't help you much there as the only "combination" books I looked at when I was kid must be out of print by now:

The Art of Chess Combination by Znosko-Borovosky

The Middle Game in Chess by Znosko-Borovosky

Good reads but might be difficult to find.

p.s. I was wrong, paperback TAoCC are cheap:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Chess-Combination-Eugene-Znosko-Borovsky/dp/0486205835

and this seems to a virtual copy of TMGiC:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wujMHI10-GkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Middle+Game+in+Chess&source=bl&ots=xPUIXIxO9v&sig=ti8weNwTood4QP1a8h9nbup8NJA&hl=en&ei=AWAVTP2GF5z60wT4_Y2JCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

also

http://www.amazon.com/Middle-Game-Chess-Eugene-Znosko-Borovsky/dp/0486239314

that is why i wrote my last post. the kind of books i recommended will tell you about typical attackinpatterns and plans to follow from those spesific openings into the middlegame and endgame. if you study like that you dont have to throw out a bunch of theorimoves and ends up thinking

"ok i played the theorimoves. what do i do now"

you will have a plan about what to do.

Well the trick is that you need to strive for good active moves that place your pieces on active squares instead of passive ones. Once you start doing that combinations will fall into your lap, you just need pay attention not to miss them. So how does one do this? Good positional understanding and good opening play. That is needed to set up positions where you can make combinations. To see the combination, for that you'll need tactical understanding.

Have you ever tried to up grade your membership instead? They have great vids on it and mentor which all helps i found.

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet, but it's really the key to success in combinations.  Simply put you have to find away for you side to be threatening TWO THINGS AT ONCE.  It's like the basic fork.  The Knight or Pawn, or whatever finds itself in a position to attack two things at the same time.  If you start looking for those opportunities and then start trying to find way to create them, you'll be well on your way!

Another powerful tactic I didn’t see mentioned is the discovered attack or discovered check. I have used it against both humans and computers. It involves a forced capture preferably of queen. In a game against computer I moved my pieces seemingly to evade capture but with the higher intention of setting up for a discovered attack on queen while simultaneously putting king in check. First I put my knight in the same diagonal as enemy queen. Though my knight was already protected by a pawn, I placed a bishop also in the same diagonal seemingly to protect the knight. At this point my tactical threat is loaded. If my opponent recognizes the threat emerging, he may look for a way to counter it. But in my next move the threat becomes unstoppable at the moment when my knight puts the king in check. There’s more than one form this attack can take. But the basic idea is an attack which is exposed by moving a piece out of the way