Discovered attack: rook to h8
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2177 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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 c1, queen h3, rook h1 h6, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c2 g2 f3 e4.
Black: king g7, queen g8, rook a8 h8, bishop e7, knight f6, pawn e5 c6 d6 a7 b7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (28 against 30; 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 g7.
It is White to move on move 23, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. Rxh8 Qxh8 24. Qg3+ Kf7 25. Rxh8
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h8 keeps the pressure (+3.9).
- Well found: queen to g3 (+4.0).
- Strong! rook to h8 is the sharp choice (+4.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxh8, then Qg3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 23. Rxh8 — rook to h8 (capture)
- Qxh8 — queen to h8 (capture)
- 24. Qg3+ — queen to g3 with check
- Kf7 — king to f7
- 25. Rxh8 — rook to h8 (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.
Winning exchange
A forced series of captures on one square ends in your favour.
A winning exchange is a forced series of captures on one square that leaves you ahead in material. It is pure arithmetic: count the attackers and defenders of the square and note the value of every piece in the queue. Capture in the right order — cheap pieces first, expensive ones later — or a winning trade turns into a losing one. The classic error is stopping the count halfway and missing the opponent's final recapture.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 015
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