Discovered attack: bishop to e5
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1922 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 c1, queen c2, rook d1 g1, bishop b2 d3, knight h5, pawn d2 h2 e3 f4 b5.
Black: king h8, queen a2, rook a8 f8, bishop d6, knight d7 e7, pawn e5 f5 g6 a7 b7 c7 h7.
12 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 19.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (33 against 35; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 19, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: a, c, g.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19. Bxe5+ Nxe5 20. Qxa2 Nxd3+ 21. Kb1
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e5 keeps the pressure (+4.7).
- Well found: queen to a2 (+4.6).
- Strong! king to b1 is the sharp choice (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Nxe5, then Qxa2 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 19. Bxe5+ — bishop to e5 (capture) with check
- Nxe5 — knight to e5 (capture)
- 20. Qxa2 — queen to a2 (capture)
- Nxd3+ — knight to d3 (capture) with check
- 21. Kb1 — king to b1
Types in this puzzle
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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