Win the hanging pawn on e5
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1837 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 g1, queen b3, rook c2, knight e5, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h3 e4 d6.
Black: king g7, queen a6, rook d7, bishop h6, pawn f6 g6 a7 b7 h7.
11 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (24 against 22; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g7.
It is Black to move on move 32, with 29 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: d, e.
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
32... fxe5 33. Rc7 Qxd6
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e5 keeps the pressure (+2.6).
- Well found: queen to d6 (+2.5).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Rc7, then Qxd6 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 32… fxe5 — pawn to e5 (capture)
- 33. Rc7 — rook to c7
- Qxd6 — queen to d6 (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 013
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