Win the hanging queen on e5
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1943 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 h2, queen d6, rook a1 f1, bishop f2 f3, knight h4, pawn c3 h3 a4 c4 e4 g5.
Black: king g8, queen f7, rook d8 f8, bishop b7, knight e5 g7, pawn f4 c5 h5 a6 b6 g6.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 34 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 49 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): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
26. Qxe5 Rde8 27. Qd6
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e5 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: queen to d6 (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Rde8, then Qd6 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 26. Qxe5 — queen to e5 (capture)
- Rde8 — rook to e8
- 27. Qd6 — queen to d6
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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