Deflection: queen to f7
li-05URTOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1449 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 f3, rook f1, knight d2, pawn a2 g2 h2 b3 e3 d4 e5.
Black: king e8, queen b4, rook h6, bishop d7 f8, pawn d5 e6 a7 b7 g7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 20.
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 e8.
It is White to move on move 20, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
Black 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
20. Qf7+ Kd8 21. Qxf8+ Qxf8 22. Rxf8+
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f7 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: queen to f8 (+4.9).
- Strong! rook to f8 is the sharp choice (+4.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kd8, then Qxf8+ and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 20. Qf7+ — queen to f7 with check
- Kd8 — king to d8
- 21. Qxf8+ — queen to f8 (capture) with check
- Qxf8 — queen to f8 (capture)
- 22. Rxf8+ — rook to f8 (capture) with check
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.
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 011
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads