Skewer: rook to e5
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 1010 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A skewer is a pin reversed — the valuable piece stands in front and, when it moves, the piece behind falls. Line your rook, bishop or queen up against the king or queen and win whatever is hiding behind it.
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 d2, rook f1 e2, pawn h2 a3 b3 d3.
Black: king e6, rook e5 e8, pawn d4 c5 a7 b7 h7.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (14 against 15; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d2, the black king on e6.
It is White to move on move 32, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e, f, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c.
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
32. Rxe5+ Kxe5 33. Re1+ Kd6 34. Rxe8
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e5 keeps the pressure (+6.5).
- Well found: rook to e1 (+6.6).
- Strong! rook to e8 is the sharp choice (+6.9).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kxe5, then Re1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 32. Rxe5+ — rook to e5 (capture) with check
- Kxe5 — king to e5 (capture)
- 33. Re1+ — rook to e1 with check
- Kd6 — king to d6
- 34. Rxe8 — rook to e8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Skewer
A line attack forces the valuable piece to move, exposing the one behind it.
A skewer is a pin turned inside out: the valuable piece stands in front and something cheaper hides behind it. The big piece must step aside, and you collect the one that was sheltering in its shadow. Scan for the enemy king or queen sharing a file, rank or diagonal with another enemy piece. The deadliest version comes with check — the king moves, the rook behind it dies.
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 006
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