Discovered attack: knight to e5
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1736 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 h1, queen d2, rook a1 f1, knight f3 d5, pawn a2 g2 h2 c3 e4 b5.
Black: king g8, queen d7, rook f7 f8, knight f4 e7, pawn e5 d6 h6 a7 b7 g7.
12 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 31 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 24, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Nxe5 dxe5 25. Nf6+ gxf6 26. Qxd7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e5 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: knight to f6 (+4.4).
- Strong! queen to d7 is the sharp choice (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead dxe5, then Nf6+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 24. Nxe5 — knight to e5 (capture)
- dxe5 — pawn to e5 (capture)
- 25. Nf6+ — knight to f6 with check
- gxf6 — pawn to f6 (capture)
- 26. Qxd7 — queen to d7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Knight fork
One knight move attacks two targets at once — the opponent can only save one.
A fork is one move that attacks two targets at once, and no piece forks better than the knight. Look through the knight's eyes: it jumps in an L and never moves along straight lines, which is exactly why its threats get missed. Both victims of a knight fork always stand on squares of one color, while the knight strikes from the opposite color. Hunt for the square from which the knight hits the king and a heavy piece at once.
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.
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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