Discovered attack: king to d6
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1402 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 a5, rook e7, pawn f2 b3 a4.
Black: king e5, rook h5, pawn h4 f6.
5 white and 4 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 40.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (8 against 7; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on a5, the black king on e5.
It is Black to move on move 40, with 5 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 3 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a, b.
The Black king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
40... Kd6+ 41. Kb4 Kxe7
Why it works
- Great move! king to d6 keeps the pressure (+8.2).
- Well found: king to e7 (+10.8).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kb4, then Kxe7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 40… Kd6+ — king to d6 with check
- 41. Kb4 — king to b4
- Kxe7 — king to e7 (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.
Rook endgame
The most common endgame — activity decides everything.
The rook endgame is the most common of all: rooks and pawns on the board. Its first law is activity — a rook behind a passed pawn beats a rook passively babysitting one. The sign of a correct plan is that your rook is attacking something, not guarding something. The typical error is locking your rook into defense: it is often better to give up a pawn and keep your rook and king active.
King evacuation
The king walks out of the danger zone on its own feet.
King evacuation: when the shelter collapses, the king walks out of the attack on his own feet — sometimes across half the board. A series of precise king moves carries him out of the firing zone, and the enemy attack dissolves. The signs: no direct defense works, but there is a route over unattacked squares to a quiet corner. Calculate the entire journey in advance — a king stranded halfway usually dies there.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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