Deflection: knight to h5
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 2228 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 f1, queen d2, rook c1 h1, bishop d4, knight g7, pawn g2 c4 d5 h6.
Black: king g8, queen e4, rook a8 f8, bishop g3 d7, pawn g4 b7 c7 f7 h7.
10 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (29 against 30; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 29, with 43 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): a, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, f.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29. Nh5 Be5 30. Qg5+ Qg6 31. Qxe5
Why it works
- Great move! knight to h5 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: queen to g5 (+4.2).
- Strong! queen to e5 is the sharp choice (+4.2).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Be5, then Qg5+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 29. Nh5 — knight to h5
- Be5 — bishop to e5
- 30. Qg5+ — queen to g5 with check
- Qg6 — queen to g6
- 31. Qxe5 — queen to e5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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