Win the hanging king on e2
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 2205 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 f1, rook a2, bishop c5, pawn e3 c4 h4 a5.
Black: king g8, rook e2, bishop b2, knight f3, pawn g3 e6 f7.
7 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (12 against 14; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 34, with 16 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, g.
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
34. Kxe2 g2 35. e4 Nd4+ 36. Kf2
Why it works
- Great move! king to e2 keeps the pressure (+5.6).
- Well found: pawn to e4 (+5.9).
- Strong! king to f2 is the sharp choice (+5.9).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead g2, then e4 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 34. Kxe2 — king to e2 (capture)
- g2 — pawn to g2
- 35. e4 — pawn to e4
- Nd4+ — knight to d4 with check
- 36. Kf2 — king to f2
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.
King march
In the endgame the king is a fighting piece — march it in.
The king march: in the endgame the king is a fighting piece, and often it is his journey forward that wins. It is time to march when the queens are off and checks hold no danger — the king attacks pawns, escorts the passer, takes squares away. The telltale sign of the theme is several king moves in a row. Plan the full route in advance using the rule of the square, and do not let the enemy king grab the opposition.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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