Win the hanging queen on f4
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 2059 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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.
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 c1, queen h8, rook h1, bishop f1 f4, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c2 h2 e4.
Black: king c8, queen f2, bishop b4, knight d8 g8, pawn e6 a7 b7 c7 f7 h7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 13.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (28 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 c1, the black king on c8.
It is Black to move on move 13, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
13... Qxf4+ 14. Kb1 Qf3 15. Bg2 Qxg2
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f4 keeps the pressure (+0.5).
- Well found: queen to f3 (+0.6).
- Strong! queen to g2 is the sharp choice (+2.5).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Kb1, then Qf3 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 13… Qxf4+ — queen to f4 (capture) with check
- 14. Kb1 — king to b1
- Qf3 — queen to f3
- 15. Bg2 — bishop to g2
- Qxg2 — queen to g2 (capture)
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.
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 014
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