Deflection: bishop to h3
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1184 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 f1, rook e1, knight c3, pawn a2 f2 b3 g3 c4 d4 h4.
Black: king g7, rook e7, bishop g4, pawn a5 h5 c6 d6 g6 c7 f7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 15 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g7.
It is Black to move on move 26, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b.
The Black king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26... Bh3+ 27. Kg1 Rxe1+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to h3 keeps the pressure (+6.9).
- Well found: rook to e1 (+7.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kg1, then Rxe1+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 26… Bh3+ — bishop to h3 with check
- 27. Kg1 — king to g1
- Rxe1+ — rook to e1 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
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.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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