Skewer: queen to h1
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 933 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A skewer is a pin reversed — the valuable piece stands in front and, when it moves, the piece behind falls. Line your rook, bishop or queen up against the king or queen and win whatever is hiding behind it.
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 d2, rook a1 g2, bishop f4, pawn a2 b2 e5 f5.
Black: king a8, queen h4, rook d8 h8, pawn d4 a7 b7 g7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 33.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (26 against 23; 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 a8.
It is Black to move on move 33, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, f.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
33... Qh1+ 34. Kf2 Qxa1
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h1 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: queen to a1 (+3.1).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kf2, then Qxa1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 33… Qh1+ — queen to h1 with check
- 34. Kf2 — king to f2
- Qxa1 — queen to a1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Skewer
A line attack forces the valuable piece to move, exposing the one behind it.
A skewer is a pin turned inside out: the valuable piece stands in front and something cheaper hides behind it. The big piece must step aside, and you collect the one that was sheltering in its shadow. Scan for the enemy king or queen sharing a file, rank or diagonal with another enemy piece. The deadliest version comes with check — the king moves, the rook behind it dies.
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 005
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