Trap the bishop on g4
li-05nh4Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Trapped piece: an enemy piece has no safe squares — catch it.
Difficulty 1581 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A trapped piece has no safe square. Spot an enemy piece that has wandered offside or been hemmed in, then play the move that takes away its last escape and wins it — often a quiet pawn push or a covering minor piece.
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 b1 e1, bishop d2 g2, knight c3, pawn f2 h2 d3 e3 g3 c4 b5.
Black: king g8, queen d7, rook b8 f8, bishop h3 g7, knight f6, pawn e5 d6 g6 b7 c7 f7 h7.
14 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 35 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 g8.
It is Black to move on move 16, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
16... Bg4 17. Qxb7 Rxb7
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to g4 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: rook to b7 (+3.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxb7, then Rxb7 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 16… Bg4 — bishop to g4
- 17. Qxb7 — queen to b7 (capture)
- Rxb7 — rook to b7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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