Skewer: queen to h8 (f6)
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 1351 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 f6, rook d1 f1, bishop b2 f3, pawn a2 f2 h2 b3 e3 g3 c4.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook e6 a8, bishop c5 c8, knight f8, pawn b4 e4 a5 c6 g6 h7.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (32 against 34; 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 21, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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
21. Qh8+ Kf7 22. Qg7+ Ke8 23. Qxc7
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h8 keeps the pressure (+7.4).
- Well found: queen to g7 (+7.5).
- Strong! queen to c7 is the sharp choice (+7.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kf7, then Qg7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 21. Qh8+ — queen to h8 with check
- Kf7 — king to f7
- 22. Qg7+ — queen to g7 with check
- Ke8 — king to e8
- 23. Qxc7 — queen to c7 (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 010
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