Deflection: pawn to g7
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1589 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 h6, pawn g6 c7.
Black: king f5, knight e7, pawn b3 d5.
3 white and 4 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 45.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (2 against 5; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h6, the black king on f5.
It is White to move on move 45, with 8 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, e, f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, d.
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
45. g7 Ke5 46. c8=Q Nxc8 47. g8=Q
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to g7 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: pawn to c8 (+4.3).
- Strong! pawn to g8 is the sharp choice (+4.4).
- You win decisive material (+4.4).
- If instead Ke5, then c8=Q and you win the pawn.
Move by move
- 45. g7 — pawn to g7
- Ke5 — king to e5
- 46. c8=Q — pawn to c8
- Nxc8 — knight to c8 (capture)
- 47. g8=Q — pawn to g8
Types in this puzzle
Decoy
A sacrifice lures the king or a piece onto a fatal square.
A decoy is the mirror image of deflection: you sacrifice to drag the king or a piece onto a fatal square. The classic is a queen or rook sac whose capture pulls the king into a knight fork, a discovered check or mate. Find the square where the target will be hit, then find the offer it cannot refuse. Calculate to the very end — a decoy only works when the follow-up is forced.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Promotion race
Both sides push passers — win the race by a tempo.
A promotion race is a sprint between two passed pawns: both sides push toward the last rank, and victory goes to whoever queens first or queens with check. You will recognize it when both players have far-advanced passers that neither king can catch. Count the tempi literally, move by move, all the way to promotion. The classic mistake is spending a tempo on a "useful" move — in a race, almost any non-pawn move loses.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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