Discovered attack: rook to f7
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1266 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 d5, rook a1 e8, pawn a2 g2 h2 c6.
Black: king g8, queen b6, rook f2 f8, pawn a6 g7 h7.
8 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (23 against 22; 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 Black to move on move 22, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
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
22... Rf7+ 23. Kh1 Rxe8
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f7 keeps the pressure (+4.0).
- Well found: rook to e8 (+4.7).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kh1, then Rxe8 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 22… Rf7+ — rook to f7 with check
- 23. Kh1 — king to h1
- Rxe8 — rook to e8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered check
The moving piece opens a check — and is free to grab anything meanwhile.
With a discovered check the moving piece unmasks a check from the piece standing behind it. While the king deals with the check, the piece that moved grabs whatever it likes, free of charge. Look for your long-range piece on a line with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. The rule: among all the ways to step aside, pick the one that captures or attacks the most expensive loot.
Blocking save
Block the check with tempo — and turn the game around.
The blocking save: you interpose a piece against the check — not passively, but with tempo, so the blocker creates a threat of its own. Such a block turns defense into attack. Whenever you are checked, compare all three replies — capture, move the king, interpose — and among the interpositions hunt for the one that counterattacks. The mistake is automatically stepping aside with the king when an active block would have turned the game around.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 009
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