Deflection: king to d2
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1956 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 e2, rook a1 a8, bishop d5, pawn b2 c3.
Black: king h8, rook g3 f8, bishop d3, pawn b3 c5 e5 d6 h7.
6 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (15 against 18; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e2, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 35, 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 2 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, f, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, e, h.
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
35. Kd2 Kg7 36. R1a7+ Kh6 37. Rxf8
Why it works
- Great move! king to d2 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: rook to a7 (+3.7).
- Strong! rook to f8 is the sharp choice (+3.7).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kg7, then R1a7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 35. Kd2 — king to d2
- Kg7 — king to g7
- 36. R1a7+ — rook to a7 with check
- Kh6 — king to h6
- 37. Rxf8 — rook to f8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
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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