Discovered attack: bishop to h3 (d7)
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1535 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 g2, queen f7, rook a1 h3, knight e2, pawn d3 e4 f6.
Black: king h8, queen a7, rook c8, bishop d7, pawn a3 b5 e5 c6 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 38.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (25 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 g2, the black king on h8.
It is Black to move on move 38, with 30 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: d, f.
The Black king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
38... Bxh3+ 39. Kxh3 Qxf7
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to h3 keeps the pressure (+6.8).
- Well found: queen to f7 (+7.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kxh3, then Qxf7 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 38… Bxh3+ — bishop to h3 (capture) with check
- 39. Kxh3 — king to h3 (capture)
- Qxf7 — queen to f7 (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.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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