Rescue the pawn to b6 (a7)
li-07dFinaming tag (square·N)Opens 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 2360 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black 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 g2, queen g3, rook a1, bishop c1 g4, knight b6, pawn c3 b4 d4 h4 a5.
Black: king a8, queen c4, rook g6 e8, pawn d5 e5 h5 f6 a7 b7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (28 against 25; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on a8.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
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
27... axb6 28. Bg5 hxg4 29. axb6+ Kb8
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to b6 keeps the pressure (+1.5).
- Well found: pawn to g4 (+1.7).
- Strong! king to b8 is the sharp choice (+1.7).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Bg5, then hxg4 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 27… axb6 — pawn to b6 (capture)
- 28. Bg5 — bishop to g5
- hxg4 — pawn to g4 (capture)
- 29. axb6+ — pawn to b6 (capture) with check
- Kb8 — king to b8
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.
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).
Pack 015
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