Win the hanging king on h7 (g8)
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1929 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 d2, rook c1 h7, bishop d4, pawn f2 g2 a3 e3 c5 g7.
Black: king g8, rook b3 c8, bishop d3, pawn a4 e4 f5.
10 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (19 against 16; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 32, with 27 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c, g.
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
32... Kxh7 33. Rh1+ Kg6 34. Rh8 Rbb8
Why it works
- Great move! king to h7 keeps the pressure (+1.3).
- Well found: king to g6 (+1.9).
- Strong! rook to b8 is the sharp choice (+1.7).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rh1+, then Kg6 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 32… Kxh7 — king to h7 (capture)
- 33. Rh1+ — rook to h1 with check
- Kg6 — king to g6
- 34. Rh8 — rook to h8
- Rbb8 — rook to b8
Types in this puzzle
X-ray
A long-range piece acts through an enemy piece on the same line.
An X-ray lets a long-range piece act through an enemy piece standing on the same line — its power shines straight through. The square behind looks safe or defended, and that illusion is exactly what the tactic exploits. Check your rooks, bishops and queens: is a key square or a target hiding behind an enemy piece on their line? When counting captures on a square, include the X-ray attackers — they join the fight the moment the line opens.
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).
Pack 014
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