Deflection: pawn to g4
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1509 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black 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 f3, rook e2, pawn a2 b2 f2 h2 c3 g3.
Black: king g6, rook e6, pawn c4 b5 g5 a6 h6 f7.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 11 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on f3, the black king on g6.
It is Black to move on move 34, with 21 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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
34... g4+ 35. Kxg4 Rxe2
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to g4 keeps the pressure (+7.4).
- Well found: rook to e2 (+7.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kxg4, then Rxe2 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 34… g4+ — pawn to g4 with check
- 35. Kxg4 — king to g4 (capture)
- Rxe2 — rook to e2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Deflection
Force the defender away from its duty — then strike what it guarded.
Deflection forces the guard to leave its post: a sacrifice or exchange drags it away from the piece or square it protects. First find the critical defender — the piece whose absence makes the mate or the material win possible. Then find the move it cannot ignore, which is usually a capture. Do not be stingy: if removing the guard wins the queen or mates, the sacrifice pays for itself many times over.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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