Deflection: bishop to g2
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1080 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 h1, queen c4, rook d1 g1, pawn a2 c2 g2 h2.
Black: king a8, queen d2, rook h8, bishop b7, pawn b6 d6 g6 a7 e7 h7.
8 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 23 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h1, the black king on a8.
It is Black to move on move 24, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): 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
24... Bxg2+ 25. Rxg2 Qxd1+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to g2 keeps the pressure (+5.2).
- Well found: queen to d1 (+5.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxg2, then Qxd1+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 24… Bxg2+ — bishop to g2 (capture) with check
- 25. Rxg2 — rook to g2 (capture)
- Qxd1+ — queen to d1 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
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.
Check chase
Every move is a check — the king is chased into losing ground.
In a check chase every one of your moves is a check, so the opponent never gets a free second. The king is herded across the board until it loses a piece or walks into a decisive blow. Such lines are the easiest to calculate: each check allows only a handful of replies, so try them all. Make it a habit to start calculating any sharp position with the checks — they are the most forcing moves on the board.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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