Skewer: pawn to h3
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 2185 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 f2, rook c2 f7, knight c1, pawn b2 g2 h2 f3 c4.
Black: king b7, rook h1 g8, bishop c7, pawn f4 h4 c5 b6.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 42.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (18 against 17; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on b7.
It is Black to move on move 42, with 27 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: g.
The Black king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
42... h3 43. gxh3 Rxh2+ 44. Kf1 Rxc2
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to h3 keeps the pressure (+6.0).
- Well found: rook to h2 (+6.2).
- Strong! rook to c2 is the sharp choice (+6.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead gxh3, then Rxh2+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 42… h3 — pawn to h3
- 43. gxh3 — pawn to h3 (capture)
- Rxh2+ — rook to h2 (capture) with check
- 44. Kf1 — king to f1
- Rxc2 — rook to c2 (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.
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.
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 015
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