Rescue the king to b1
li-0D2YqOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1863 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 c1, rook g1 d2, bishop e2 e3, pawn b2 f2 f3 h3 c4 e4.
Black: king e7, rook a8 h8, bishop d6, knight a2, pawn c5 e5 f6 g6 a7 b7 h7.
11 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (22 against 23; 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 e7.
It is White to move on move 18, with 3 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, g.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
18. Kb1 Nb4 19. Rgd1 Rhd8 20. Rxd6
Why it works
- Great move! king to b1 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: rook to d1 (+4.1).
- Strong! rook to d6 is the sharp choice (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Nb4, then Rgd1 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 18. Kb1 — king to b1
- Nb4 — knight to b4
- 19. Rgd1 — rook to d1
- Rhd8 — rook to d8
- 20. Rxd6 — rook to d6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Battery
Two pieces stacked on one line — the front one strikes with double force.
A battery stacks two long-range pieces on one line — a queen behind a bishop on a diagonal, or doubled rooks on a file. The front piece strikes with double force: capture it, and the piece behind recaptures with even more pressure. The battery is ready when both pieces already stare at one point and only the front strike is missing. Build batteries in advance on lines leading to the king — the doubling itself often breeds the combination.
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.
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 014
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