Win the hanging knight on f8
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1176 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 b1, queen h4, knight e6, pawn b2 c2 g2 h2 f6.
Black: king h8, queen b8, rook f8, knight e8, pawn e3 a5 f7 h7.
8 white and 8 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 (17 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 33, with 33 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, e.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
33. Nxf8 Nxf6 34. Qxf6+
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f8 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: queen to f6 (+5.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Nxf6, then Qxf6+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 33. Nxf8 — knight to f8 (capture)
- Nxf6 — knight to f6 (capture)
- 34. Qxf6+ — queen to f6 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
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 007
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