Discovered attack: queen to g3
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1842 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 f1, queen d5, rook a1 g3, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 h3 e4.
Black: king h8, queen h4, rook f8, bishop f3, pawn e5 a7 b7 c7 g7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (25 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 f1, the black king on h8.
It is Black to move on move 22, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f.
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
22... Qxg3 23. fxg3 Bxe4+ 24. Ke1 Bxd5
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g3 keeps the pressure (+5.6).
- Well found: bishop to e4 (+5.2).
- Strong! bishop to d5 is the sharp choice (+5.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead fxg3, then Bxe4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 22… Qxg3 — queen to g3 (capture)
- 23. fxg3 — pawn to g3 (capture)
- Bxe4+ — bishop to e4 (capture) with check
- 24. Ke1 — king to e1
- Bxd5 — bishop to d5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
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.
Simplification
Trade the heavy pieces and steer into a won endgame.
Simplification is how you convert an advantage: by trading queens and rooks you extinguish the counterplay and steer the game into a won endgame. The rule is simple — the side with extra material trades pieces but keeps pawns. Look for exchanges once the material is already won and your opponent is still rattling threats. The mistake is avoiding the queen trade and letting him muddy the water forever.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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