Win the hanging queen on a5
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1970 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.
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 h1, queen g3, rook f1 b7, bishop d3 a5, pawn b2 g2 h2 a3 f4.
Black: king h8, queen h5, rook b8 d8, bishop d7, knight f6, pawn d4 e6 h6 g7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 29; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on h8.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a, b, f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
27... Qxa5 28. Rxb8 Rxb8
Why it works
- Great move! queen to a5 keeps the pressure (+3.7).
- Well found: rook to b8 (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxb8, then Rxb8 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 27… Qxa5 — queen to a5 (capture)
- 28. Rxb8 — rook to b8 (capture)
- Rxb8 — rook to b8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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