Discovered attack: rook to g7 (c7)
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1835 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 h2, queen h4, rook c7, bishop f4 a6, pawn a2 g2 b3 h3.
Black: king g8, queen e4, rook d8 f8, bishop e6, pawn b6 f6 h6 a7 g7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (24 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 30, with 44 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30. Rxg7+ Kxg7 31. Bxh6+ Kg6 32. Qxe4+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to g7 keeps the pressure (+5.1).
- Well found: bishop to h6 (+5.2).
- Strong! queen to e4 is the sharp choice (+5.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kxg7, then Bxh6+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 30. Rxg7+ — rook to g7 (capture) with check
- Kxg7 — king to g7 (capture)
- 31. Bxh6+ — bishop to h6 (capture) with check
- Kg6 — king to g6
- 32. Qxe4+ — queen to e4 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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