Skewer: rook to d2 (g2)
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 1839 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 b1, rook h1 d2, bishop e3, knight f5 e7, pawn f3 e4 h5.
Black: king h7, rook g2 a8, bishop g7, knight f6, pawn b2 e5 g5 h6 f7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (22 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b1, the black king on h7.
It is Black to move on move 30, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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
30... Rxd2 31. Bxd2 Ra1+ 32. Kxb2 Rxh1
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d2 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: rook to a1 (+4.4).
- Strong! rook to h1 is the sharp choice (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Bxd2, then Ra1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 30… Rxd2 — rook to d2 (capture)
- 31. Bxd2 — bishop to d2 (capture)
- Ra1+ — rook to a1 with check
- 32. Kxb2 — king to b2 (capture)
- Rxh1 — rook to h1 (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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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