Skewer: queen to h8
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 842 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
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.
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 g1, queen d4, rook a1 f1, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 g2 h2.
Black: king f8, queen d7, rook a8 h8, bishop e6, knight c4, pawn g5 d6 h6 a7 b7 c7 f7.
10 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (25 against 32; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on f8.
It is White to move on move 17, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
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
17. Qxh8+ Ke7 18. Qxa8
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h8 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: queen to a8 (+4.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Ke7, then Qxa8 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 17. Qxh8+ — queen to h8 (capture) with check
- Ke7 — king to e7
- 18. Qxa8 — queen to a8 (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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 004
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