Deflection: queen to c5
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1726 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 e2, queen a3, rook e5, pawn a2 f2 g3 d4.
Black: king c6, queen h1, rook h2, knight d5, pawn a6 g6 b7 f7 g7.
7 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 33.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (18 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 e2, the black king on c6.
It is White to move on move 33, with 27 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): c, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
33. Qc5+ Kd7 34. Rxd5+ Qxd5 35. Qxd5+
Why it works
- Great move! queen to c5 keeps the pressure (+6.2).
- Well found: rook to d5 (+6.5).
- Strong! queen to d5 is the sharp choice (+6.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kd7, then Rxd5+ and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 33. Qc5+ — queen to c5 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 34. Rxd5+ — rook to d5 (capture) with check
- Qxd5 — queen to d5 (capture)
- 35. Qxd5+ — queen to d5 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Winning exchange
A forced series of captures on one square ends in your favour.
A winning exchange is a forced series of captures on one square that leaves you ahead in material. It is pure arithmetic: count the attackers and defenders of the square and note the value of every piece in the queue. Capture in the right order — cheap pieces first, expensive ones later — or a winning trade turns into a losing one. The classic error is stopping the count halfway and missing the opponent's final recapture.
Check chase
Every move is a check — the king is chased into losing ground.
In a check chase every one of your moves is a check, so the opponent never gets a free second. The king is herded across the board until it loses a piece or walks into a decisive blow. Such lines are the easiest to calculate: each check allows only a handful of replies, so try them all. Make it a habit to start calculating any sharp position with the checks — they are the most forcing moves on the board.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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