Win the hanging queen on f6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1678 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 b6, bishop f2, pawn g2 a3 f3 h5 e7.
Black: king g8, queen a4, rook e8, bishop f6, pawn c4 g5 a6 h6 f7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (17 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 h2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 32, with 33 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d — 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. Qxf6 c3 33. Bd4 Qxd4 34. Qxd4
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f6 keeps the pressure (+7.9).
- Well found: bishop to d4 (+8.2).
- Strong! queen to d4 is the sharp choice (+8.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead c3, then Bd4 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 32. Qxf6 — queen to f6 (capture)
- c3 — pawn to c3
- 33. Bd4 — bishop to d4
- Qxd4 — queen to d4 (capture)
- 34. Qxd4 — queen to d4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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