Discovered attack: knight to f3 (h4)
li-04GtPnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1226 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 e2, rook f1, bishop b2, knight e3, pawn a2 f2 h2 d3.
Black: king g8, rook a8 f8, bishop d5, knight h4, pawn g5 e6 g6 h6 a7 b7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (24 against 22; 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 25, with 34 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): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: d, f.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25... Nf3+ 26. Kh1 Nd4+ 27. Nxd5 Nxe2
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f3 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: knight to d4 (+4.3).
- Strong! knight to e2 is the sharp choice (+4.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh1, then Nd4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 25… Nf3+ — knight to f3 with check
- 26. Kh1 — king to h1
- Nd4+ — knight to d4 with check
- 27. Nxd5 — knight to d5 (capture)
- Nxe2 — knight to e2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered check
The moving piece opens a check — and is free to grab anything meanwhile.
With a discovered check the moving piece unmasks a check from the piece standing behind it. While the king deals with the check, the piece that moved grabs whatever it likes, free of charge. Look for your long-range piece on a line with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. The rule: among all the ways to step aside, pick the one that captures or attacks the most expensive loot.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 008
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