Discovered attack: queen to c3
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2193 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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, queen f6, rook a1 h1, pawn c3 e3 g3 f4 h5.
Black: king d6, queen c6, rook d8, pawn d4 e6 b7 c7.
9 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 38.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 6 points of material (24 against 18; 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 d6.
It is Black to move on move 38, with 30 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f, g, h.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
38... Qxc3+ 39. Ke2 d3+ 40. Kf3 Qxf6
Why it works
- Great move! queen to c3 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: pawn to d3 (+4.6).
- Strong! queen to f6 is the sharp choice (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Ke2, then d3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 38… Qxc3+ — queen to c3 (capture) with check
- 39. Ke2 — king to e2
- d3+ — pawn to d3 with check
- 40. Kf3 — king to f3
- Qxf6 — queen to f6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 015
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