Rescue the rook to e1
li-08O6IOpens 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 2078 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 f1, queen h6, rook d1 e6, bishop d6, pawn f2 g2 b3 h3.
Black: king g8, queen c2, rook f7 d8, knight a6, pawn c6 f6 g6 a7 b7 h7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (26 against 28; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, c.
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
26. Rde1 Qd3+ 27. Kg1 Qxd6 28. Rxd6
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e1 keeps the pressure (+5.8).
- Well found: king to g1 (+5.8).
- Strong! rook to d6 is the sharp choice (+6.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qd3+, then Kg1 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 26. Rde1 — rook to e1
- Qd3+ — queen to d3 with check
- 27. Kg1 — king to g1
- Qxd6 — queen to d6 (capture)
- 28. Rxd6 — rook to d6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
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 015
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