Win the hanging rook on f3
li-0ASbWOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
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 1822 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 d1, rook a3, bishop e7, pawn b4 h4.
Black: king c4, rook f3, bishop f5, pawn h5 g6.
5 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 75.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 10 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on d1, the black king on c4.
It is White to move on move 75, with 23 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c, d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: g.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
75. Rxf3 Bg4 76. Ke2 Kd4 77. Kf2
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f3 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Well found: king to e2 (+5.7).
- Strong! king to f2 is the sharp choice (+6.1).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Bg4, then Ke2 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 75. Rxf3 — rook to f3 (capture)
- Bg4 — bishop to g4
- 76. Ke2 — king to e2
- Kd4 — king to d4
- 77. Kf2 — king to f2
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.
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads