Rescue the pawn to d5
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The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1963 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 h1, queen c6, rook g5, pawn b2 h2 c3 d3 a4 e4.
Black: king b8, rook f6 d8, bishop e7, knight h6, pawn d6 a7 f7 h7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 20 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h1, the black king on b8.
It is Black to move on move 31, with 20 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c, e.
The Black king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
31... d5 32. Qb5+ Rb6 33. Rxd5 Rxb5
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to d5 keeps the pressure (+4.7).
- Well found: rook to b6 (+4.6).
- Strong! rook to b5 is the sharp choice (+4.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qb5+, then Rb6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 31… d5 — pawn to d5
- 32. Qb5+ — queen to b5 with check
- Rb6 — rook to b6
- 33. Rxd5 — rook to d5 (capture)
- Rxb5 — rook to b5 (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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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