Win the hanging pawn on h6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1735 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 f3, rook d1, bishop d4, knight h6, pawn a2 b2 f2 g3 c4 h4.
Black: king g8, queen b7, rook e8, bishop f8, knight e4, pawn a5 c5 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (26 against 25; 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 26, 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 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b.
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
26... gxh6 27. Qg4+ Ng5
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to h6 keeps the pressure (+2.8).
- Well found: knight to g5 (+3.0).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Qg4+, then Ng5 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 26… gxh6 — pawn to h6 (capture)
- 27. Qg4+ — queen to g4 with check
- Ng5 — knight to g5
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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