Discovered attack: rook to f5
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1114 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 c4, rook f3, bishop d4, pawn a2 h2 b3 c3 g3.
Black: king f8, rook d5, bishop f7, pawn a5 h6 g7.
8 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (13 against 11; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c4, the black king on f8.
It is Black to move on move 36, with 17 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
36... Rf5+ 37. Kd3 Rxf3+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f5 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: rook to f3 (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kd3, then Rxf3+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 36… Rf5+ — rook to f5 with check
- 37. Kd3 — king to d3
- Rxf3+ — rook to f3 (capture) with check
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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