Discovered attack: rook to e3
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1625 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 g1, queen d2, rook a1 f1, bishop e2, knight c3, pawn g2 h2 a3 e3 f4.
Black: king g8, queen c5, rook e5 a8, bishop c8, pawn a7 b7 c7 d7 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 29; 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 Black to move on move 16, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: e.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
16... Rxe3 17. Na4 Rxe2+ 18. Nxc5 Rxd2
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e3 keeps the pressure (+3.4).
- Well found: rook to e2 (+3.5).
- Strong! rook to d2 is the sharp choice (+3.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Na4, then Rxe2+ and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 16… Rxe3 — rook to e3 (capture)
- 17. Na4 — knight to a4
- Rxe2+ — rook to e2 (capture) with check
- 18. Nxc5 — knight to c5 (capture)
- Rxd2 — rook to d2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Simplification
Trade the heavy pieces and steer into a won endgame.
Simplification is how you convert an advantage: by trading queens and rooks you extinguish the counterplay and steer the game into a won endgame. The rule is simple — the side with extra material trades pieces but keeps pawns. Look for exchanges once the material is already won and your opponent is still rattling threats. The mistake is avoiding the queen trade and letting him muddy the water forever.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 012
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