Deflection: queen to e7
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 2240 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 h2, queen e2, bishop a4 f4, pawn a2 g2 c3 h3 d4.
Black: king c7, queen f5, rook g8 h8, pawn c4 a6 d6 f6 f7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 37.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (20 against 24; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h2, the black king on c7.
It is White to move on move 37, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
37. Qe7+ Kc8 38. Qxd6 Qxf4+ 39. Qxf4
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e7 keeps the pressure (+6.7).
- Well found: queen to d6 (+7.0).
- Strong! queen to f4 is the sharp choice (+7.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kc8, then Qxd6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 37. Qe7+ — queen to e7 with check
- Kc8 — king to c8
- 38. Qxd6 — queen to d6 (capture)
- Qxf4+ — queen to f4 (capture) with check
- 39. Qxf4 — queen to f4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
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).
Pack 015
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