Discovered attack: knight to d5 (f4)
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1583 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 c3, queen f5, rook e6, knight d6, pawn a2 c2 g2 h2 d3 b4.
Black: king f8, queen f2, rook a8, knight f4, pawn g5 c6 h6 a7 b7 f7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 23 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on c3, the black king on f8.
It is Black to move on move 31, with 36 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): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: d.
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
31... Nd5+ 32. Kb3 Qxf5 33. Nxf5 fxe6
Why it works
- Great move! knight to d5 keeps the pressure (+5.3).
- Well found: queen to f5 (+5.7).
- Strong! pawn to e6 is the sharp choice (+5.8).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kb3, then Qxf5 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 31… Nd5+ — knight to d5 with check
- 32. Kb3 — king to b3
- Qxf5 — queen to f5 (capture)
- 33. Nxf5 — knight to f5 (capture)
- fxe6 — pawn to e6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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