Win the hanging king on d6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1374 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black 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 b7, rook f1 d6, bishop b5, knight c7, pawn a2 b2 c2 g2 h2.
Black: king d7, queen b6, rook d8 h8, knight c6 f6, pawn a7 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 19.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 29; 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 d7.
It is Black to move on move 19, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19... Kxd6 20. Qxb6 axb6
Why it works
- Great move! king to d6 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: pawn to b6 (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxb6, then axb6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 19… Kxd6 — king to d6 (capture)
- 20. Qxb6 — queen to b6 (capture)
- axb6 — pawn to b6 (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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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