Rescue the king to f1
li-07Al6Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2007 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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 e2, rook a6, knight d3, pawn b3 f3 c4 e4 h4.
Black: king f6, rook g2, bishop d6, pawn b4 c5 e5 h5 e6.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 50.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 13 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on e2, the black king on f6.
It is White to move on move 50, with 5 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
50. Kf1 Rd2 51. Rxd6 Ke7 52. Ke1
Why it works
- Great move! king to f1 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: rook to d6 (+4.9).
- Strong! king to e1 is the sharp choice (+5.1).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Rd2, then Rxd6 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 50. Kf1 — king to f1
- Rd2 — rook to d2
- 51. Rxd6 — rook to d6 (capture)
- Ke7 — king to e7
- 52. Ke1 — king to e1
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.
King march
In the endgame the king is a fighting piece — march it in.
The king march: in the endgame the king is a fighting piece, and often it is his journey forward that wins. It is time to march when the queens are off and checks hold no danger — the king attacks pawns, escorts the passer, takes squares away. The telltale sign of the theme is several king moves in a row. Plan the full route in advance using the rule of the square, and do not let the enemy king grab the opposition.
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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