Discovered attack: bishop to e8
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1289 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 f3, rook h5, bishop b5, pawn g3 a4.
Black: king g6, rook a5, knight c3, pawn e3 d4 h6.
5 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 57.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (10 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 f3, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 57, with 22 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, e, h.
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
57. Be8+ Kf6 58. Rxa5
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e8 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: rook to a5 (+4.8).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kf6, then Rxa5 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 57. Be8+ — bishop to e8 with check
- Kf6 — king to f6
- 58. Rxa5 — rook to a5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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.
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 009
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