Deflection: knight to g6
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1130 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 c5, rook a1 e1, knight e5, pawn a2 b2 g2 h2 c3 f4.
Black: king h8, queen e8, rook f5 c8, bishop g7, knight b5, pawn a6 g6 h6.
11 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 28 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 White to move on move 24, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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
24. Nxg6+ Qxg6 25. Qxc8+
Why it works
- Great move! knight to g6 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: queen to c8 (+3.7).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qxg6, then Qxc8+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 24. Nxg6+ — knight to g6 (capture) with check
- Qxg6 — queen to g6 (capture)
- 25. Qxc8+ — queen to c8 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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