Rescue the pawn to e4
li-05kuIOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1504 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 d3, bishop e3, pawn a2 b2 g2 c3 g3 h4.
Black: king h7, queen e8, bishop g4, pawn a4 f4 b5 e5 h5 g7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 40.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 18 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on h7.
It is Black to move on move 40, with 7 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
40... e4 41. Qd2 fxe3
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e4 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: pawn to e3 (+4.8).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qd2, then fxe3 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 40… e4 — pawn to e4
- 41. Qd2 — queen to d2
- fxe3 — pawn to e3 (capture)
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.
Passed pawn
Nothing can stop the passer — escort it to the last rank.
A passed pawn has no enemy pawns in front of it or on the neighboring files: only pieces can stop it. Check who can blockade the pawn or catch it with the king — if nobody can, the pawn is worth a whole piece. Push the passer with your pieces supporting it, and put your rook behind it. The beginner's mistake is shoving the pawn forward unprotected, straight into a capture.
Blocking save
Block the check with tempo — and turn the game around.
The blocking save: you interpose a piece against the check — not passively, but with tempo, so the blocker creates a threat of its own. Such a block turns defense into attack. Whenever you are checked, compare all three replies — capture, move the king, interpose — and among the interpositions hunt for the one that counterattacks. The mistake is automatically stepping aside with the king when an active block would have turned the game around.
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