Rescue the king to e6
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The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2250 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 h3, rook f4 g7, bishop f6, pawn g3.
Black: king f7, rook e2 b7, pawn d2 e4 h5 h7.
5 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 55.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 14 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h3, the black king on f7.
It is Black to move on move 55, with 3 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 1 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: g.
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
55... Ke6 56. Rxb7 d1=Q 57. Rb6+ Kd7
Why it works
- Great move! king to e6 keeps the pressure (+4.6).
- Well found: pawn to d1 (+5.2).
- Strong! king to d7 is the sharp choice (+5.5).
- You win decisive material (+5.5).
- If instead Rxb7, then d1=Q and you win the pawn.
Move by move
- 55… Ke6 — king to e6
- 56. Rxb7 — rook to b7 (capture)
- d1=Q — pawn to d1
- 57. Rb6+ — rook to b6 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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.
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).
Pack 015
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