Win the hanging rook on e7
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1862 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king h1, queen h6, rook e6, knight b3, pawn a2 c2 g2 h2 d3.
Black: king h8, queen b2, rook e7 a8, bishop g3, pawn d5 f6 a7 b7 h7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (22 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, f.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25. Rxe7 Qb1+ 26. Nc1 Qxc1+ 27. Qxc1
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e7 keeps the pressure (+6.4).
- Well found: knight to c1 (+6.6).
- Strong! queen to c1 is the sharp choice (+6.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qb1+, then Nc1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 25. Rxe7 — rook to e7 (capture)
- Qb1+ — queen to b1 with check
- 26. Nc1 — knight to c1
- Qxc1+ — queen to c1 (capture) with check
- 27. Qxc1 — queen to c1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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