Win the hanging rook on c4
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1685 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 e3, rook a1 f4, bishop f6, knight b1, pawn a2 g2 h2 c3 e5.
Black: king g8, queen h5, rook a8 e8, bishop c8, knight c4, pawn g6 a7 b7 c7 f7 h7.
11 white and 12 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 (30 against 31; 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 20, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, f.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
20. Rxc4 Qd1+ 21. Kf2
Why it works
- Great move! rook to c4 keeps the pressure (+4.7).
- Well found: king to f2 (+4.8).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Qd1+, then Kf2 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 20. Rxc4 — rook to c4 (capture)
- Qd1+ — queen to d1 with check
- 21. Kf2 — king to f2
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.
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 013
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