Trap the pawn on c4
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The tactical motive
Trapped piece: an enemy piece has no safe squares — catch it.
Difficulty 1522 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A trapped piece has no safe square. Spot an enemy piece that has wandered offside or been hemmed in, then play the move that takes away its last escape and wins it — often a quiet pawn push or a covering minor piece.
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, rook a1, bishop h2 b3, knight e4, pawn a2 b2 c2 f3 h3.
Black: king h8, rook c7 f8, knight h5, pawn f4 c5 a6 b6 h6 g7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 19 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on h8.
It is Black to move on move 28, with 24 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28... c4 29. Ba4 b5 30. Bxb5 axb5
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to c4 keeps the pressure (+3.0).
- Well found: pawn to b5 (+3.1).
- Strong! pawn to b5 is the sharp choice (+3.4).
- You reach a winning position (+3.4).
- If instead Ba4, then b5 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 28… c4 — pawn to c4
- 29. Ba4 — bishop to a4
- b5 — pawn to b5
- 30. Bxb5 — bishop to b5 (capture)
- axb5 — pawn to b5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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