Discovered attack: knight to e5 (f3)
li-05IU7naming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1833 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 g1, queen c2, rook a1 e1, bishop b2 g2, knight d2 f3, pawn a2 f2 b3 g3 h3 c4.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook c8 f8, bishop b7 g7, knight e5 d7, pawn c5 b6 e6 g6 a7 f7 h7.
14 white and 15 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (37 against 38; 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 16, with 42 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: e.
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
16. Nxe5 Nxe5 17. Bxb7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e5 keeps the pressure (+3.4).
- Well found: bishop to b7 (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Nxe5, then Bxb7 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 16. Nxe5 — knight to e5 (capture)
- Nxe5 — knight to e5 (capture)
- 17. Bxb7 — bishop to b7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Clearance
Clear your own piece out of the way — with tempo — for the decisive blow.
Clearance is about your own piece standing in the way of the decisive blow — so you move it aside, or even throw it away. The key is to clear with tempo: jump off with a check, a capture or a threat, giving the opponent no time to regroup. The telltale sign: you see a crushing queen or rook move, but one of your own pieces blocks the line or occupies the square. Do not cling to it — a clearance sacrifice usually costs less than a missed attack.
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.
Overload
One defender guards two things — it cannot do both jobs.
Overloading exploits a defender with two jobs at once — guarding a piece and covering a mating square, for instance. It cannot do both: your first strike forces it to handle one duty and abandon the other. Find the overworked piece by asking what happens to each of its charges if it gets distracted. Then hit one target and collect the other — an overloaded defender only pretends to defend.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads