Win the hanging pawn on a3
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1480 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 g1, queen f3, rook b1 e2, bishop e3, knight c3, pawn b2 c2 f2 g2 h3.
Black: king g8, queen d8, rook b8 f8, bishop a3, knight f6, pawn d5 a6 e6 h6 f7 g7.
11 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 20.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 31; 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 20, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: a, d, 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
20. bxa3 Rxb1+ 21. Nxb1
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to a3 keeps the pressure (+2.8).
- Well found: knight to b1 (+3.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxb1+, then Nxb1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 20. bxa3 — pawn to a3 (capture)
- Rxb1+ — rook to b1 (capture) with check
- 21. Nxb1 — knight to b1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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 011
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