Deflection: pawn to h5 (h4)
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1599 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 g3, rook d7, bishop d4, pawn f2 h4.
Black: king g6, rook f7, knight d3, pawn a4 c4 b5.
5 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 44.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (10 against 11; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g3, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 44, with 26 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): d, e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, b, c.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
44. h5+ Kxh5 45. Rxf7
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to h5 keeps the pressure (+4.0).
- Well found: rook to f7 (+4.4).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kxh5, then Rxf7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 44. h5+ — pawn to h5 with check
- Kxh5 — king to h5 (capture)
- 45. Rxf7 — rook to f7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Deflection
Force the defender away from its duty — then strike what it guarded.
Deflection forces the guard to leave its post: a sacrifice or exchange drags it away from the piece or square it protects. First find the critical defender — the piece whose absence makes the mate or the material win possible. Then find the move it cannot ignore, which is usually a capture. Do not be stingy: if removing the guard wins the queen or mates, the sacrifice pays for itself many times over.
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 011
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