How does the extra tempo materialize?
In an equal game. the tempi are in balance. The first step to a win is to get the initiative. You do something, and your opponent must react. This already points in the direction that there must be some targets in the position. No targets, no initiative. The creation of targets is another chapter where we need to talk about. But for now I want to focus on the mysterious tempi. Having the initiative alone is not enough. You need an extra tempo. If you look at tactical puzzles, then you notice that you can only convert a combination into a win, when you are able to gain an extra tempo along the way. That looks logical, because only when you get an extra tempo while your opponent does not, you can expect to execute the extra tempo and convert it to a gain of some sort. Whether that gain is enough to win the game is a totally different matter. Little is known about the materialization of this extra tempo out of the blue. Logically it can't come out of the blue. How does this mechanism...