Win the hanging bishop on a5
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2101 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 h2, rook e1, bishop f5 c7, pawn a2 f2 g2 g4.
Black: king g8, queen f6, rook e8, knight a5 f8, pawn h6 a7 b7 f7 g7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (24 against 25; 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 28, with 46 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: b, h.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28. Bxa5 Rxe1+ 29. Bxe1 Qa1 30. Kf1
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to a5 keeps the pressure (+3.7).
- Spot on — bishop to e1 (+3.7).
- Strong! king to f1 is the sharp choice (+4.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxe1+, then Bxe1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 28. Bxa5 — bishop to a5 (capture)
- Rxe1+ — rook to e1 (capture) with check
- 29. Bxe1 — bishop to e1 (capture)
- Qa1 — queen to a1
- 30. Kf1 — king to f1
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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 015
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