Win the hanging king on f6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 2208 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 g5, rook b5, pawn b6.
Black: king e3, rook f6, pawn d4 c5 b7.
3 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 45.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (6 against 8; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g5, the black king on e3.
It is White to move on move 45, with 10 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 1 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, e, f, g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, d.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
45. Kxf6 c4 46. Re5+
Why it works
- Great move! king to f6 keeps the pressure (+5.0).
- Well found: rook to e5 (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead c4, then Re5+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 45. Kxf6 — king to f6 (capture)
- c4 — pawn to c4
- 46. Re5+ — rook to e5 with check
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.
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.
Rook endgame
The most common endgame — activity decides everything.
The rook endgame is the most common of all: rooks and pawns on the board. Its first law is activity — a rook behind a passed pawn beats a rook passively babysitting one. The sign of a correct plan is that your rook is attacking something, not guarding something. The typical error is locking your rook into defense: it is often better to give up a pawn and keep your rook and king active.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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