Win the hanging king on f3
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1475 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 f2, knight f5, pawn a4 b4 c4 e4 d5.
Black: king h2, knight f3, pawn h3 f4 a6 b6 d6 c7.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 47.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (8 against 9; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on h2.
It is White to move on move 47, with 15 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, h.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
47. Kxf3 Kg1 48. Kxf4 h2 49. Ng3
Why it works
- Great move! king to f3 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: king to f4 (+4.1).
- Strong! knight to g3 is the sharp choice (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Kg1, then Kxf4 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 47. Kxf3 — king to f3 (capture)
- Kg1 — king to g1
- 48. Kxf4 — king to f4 (capture)
- h2 — pawn to h2
- 49. Ng3 — knight to g3
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.
Minor-piece endgame
Bishops and knights duel — geometry decides.
A minor-piece endgame leaves only bishops and knights with pawns, and geometry decides. The bishop loves an open board and play on both wings; the knight loves fixed pawns and outpost squares. Check which color squares the pawns stand on and where the knight can actually reach in time. Practical tip: against a knight, spread the play across both flanks — short legs cannot cover everything.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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