Win the hanging knight on e6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 951 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
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.
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 b2, rook g7, knight f4, pawn b3 c4.
Black: king b7, rook d7, bishop e6, pawn b6 a7.
5 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 61.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 10 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on b2, the black king on b7.
It is White to move on move 61, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, f, g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a.
The White king has 7 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
61. Nxe6 Rxg7 62. Nxg7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e6 keeps the pressure (+5.2).
- Well found: knight to g7 (+5.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxg7, then Nxg7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 61. Nxe6 — knight to e6 (capture)
- Rxg7 — rook to g7 (capture)
- 62. Nxg7 — knight to g7 (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.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
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 005
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