Skewer: rook to e8 (f8)
li-0DCLcnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 2008 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A skewer is a pin reversed — the valuable piece stands in front and, when it moves, the piece behind falls. Line your rook, bishop or queen up against the king or queen and win whatever is hiding behind it.
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 e5, rook b1 f1, bishop e2 f4, knight f3, pawn a2 b2 g2 h2 c4 d5.
Black: king g8, queen d8, rook a8 f8, bishop c5, knight f6 b8, pawn b6 a7 f7 g7 h7.
13 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 13.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (34 against 33; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 13, with 33 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): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c, d.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
13... Re8 14. Qc3 Rxe2
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e8 keeps the pressure (+2.3).
- Well found: rook to e2 (+2.4).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qc3, then Rxe2 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 13… Re8 — rook to e8
- 14. Qc3 — queen to c3
- Rxe2 — rook to e2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Skewer
A line attack forces the valuable piece to move, exposing the one behind it.
A skewer is a pin turned inside out: the valuable piece stands in front and something cheaper hides behind it. The big piece must step aside, and you collect the one that was sheltering in its shadow. Scan for the enemy king or queen sharing a file, rank or diagonal with another enemy piece. The deadliest version comes with check — the king moves, the rook behind it dies.
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.
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).
Pack 014
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads