Discovered attack: pawn to e4
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1386 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 d3, rook g5, knight b1, pawn g2 h2.
Black: king c7, rook b5, pawn b2 g4 e5.
5 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 41.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (10 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 d3, the black king on c7.
It is Black to move on move 41, with 18 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c, d, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: h.
The Black king has 8 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
41... e4+ 42. Kc2 Rxg5
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e4 keeps the pressure (+4.7).
- Well found: rook to g5 (+5.1).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kc2, then Rxg5 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 41… e4+ — pawn to e4 with check
- 42. Kc2 — king to c2
- Rxg5 — rook to g5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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.
Passed pawn
Nothing can stop the passer — escort it to the last rank.
A passed pawn has no enemy pawns in front of it or on the neighboring files: only pieces can stop it. Check who can blockade the pawn or catch it with the king — if nobody can, the pawn is worth a whole piece. Push the passer with your pieces supporting it, and put your rook behind it. The beginner's mistake is shoving the pawn forward unprotected, straight into a capture.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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