Win the hanging king on d6 (c7)
li-03w1Knaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1636 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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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, rook f1, knight d6, pawn a2 b2 c2 h2 g3 f6.
Black: king c7, rook d8, bishop b7, pawn a6 c6 e6 g6 h6.
9 white and 8 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 (14 against 13; 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 c7.
It is Black to move on move 26, with 20 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, f.
The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26... Kxd6 27. Rd1+ Kc7
Why it works
- Great move! king to d6 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: king to c7 (+4.2).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Rd1+, then Kc7 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 26… Kxd6 — king to d6 (capture)
- 27. Rd1+ — rook to d1 with check
- Kc7 — king to c7
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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.
King march
In the endgame the king is a fighting piece — march it in.
The king march: in the endgame the king is a fighting piece, and often it is his journey forward that wins. It is time to march when the queens are off and checks hold no danger — the king attacks pawns, escorts the passer, takes squares away. The telltale sign of the theme is several king moves in a row. Plan the full route in advance using the rule of the square, and do not let the enemy king grab the opposition.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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