Deflection: queen to c5 (e7)
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 2040 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black 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 f2, queen c2, rook a1 e1, bishop c1 a6, knight c3 f3, pawn b2 g2 h2 a3.
Black: king g8, queen e7, rook a8 f8, bishop b7, knight c6 f6, pawn a7 c7 d7 f7 g7 h7.
12 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (35 against 34; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 15, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
15... Qc5+ 16. Be3 Ng4+ 17. Kg3 Nxe3
Why it works
- Great move! queen to c5 keeps the pressure (+1.6).
- Well found: knight to g4 (+1.8).
- Strong! knight to e3 is the sharp choice (+1.6).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Be3, then Ng4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 15… Qc5+ — queen to c5 with check
- 16. Be3 — bishop to e3
- Ng4+ — knight to g4 with check
- 17. Kg3 — king to g3
- Nxe3 — knight to e3 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
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).
Pack 014
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