Deflection: rook to d7
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1435 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 g1, queen f3, rook d2, bishop e5, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 g2 h2.
Black: king g8, queen c8, rook a8, bishop e7, knight d7, pawn a6 b6 e6 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 19.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 26 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 19, with 49 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: e.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19. Rxd7 Qxd7 20. Qxa8+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d7 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: queen to a8 (+4.8).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qxd7, then Qxa8+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 19. Rxd7 — rook to d7 (capture)
- Qxd7 — queen to d7 (capture)
- 20. Qxa8+ — queen to a8 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Deflection
Force the defender away from its duty — then strike what it guarded.
Deflection forces the guard to leave its post: a sacrifice or exchange drags it away from the piece or square it protects. First find the critical defender — the piece whose absence makes the mate or the material win possible. Then find the move it cannot ignore, which is usually a capture. Do not be stingy: if removing the guard wins the queen or mates, the sacrifice pays for itself many times over.
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.
Trapped piece
The attacked piece has no safe square — it is caught.
Trapping a piece means the attacked piece has no safe square left — it simply perishes. Do not chase it around; build a cage instead: cut off the escape squares with pawns and pieces first, and attack last. The typical victim has wandered deep into your camp or is stuck at the edge of the board, where its mobility is tiny. And always check the way home for your own raiders — or the trapped piece will be yours.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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