Discovered attack: knight to f6 (e4·6)
li-0Fv5Rnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2110 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 g1, queen g3, rook d1 f1, bishop g5, knight e4, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h3.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook a8 f8, bishop b6, knight d3, pawn d5 c6 a7 b7 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 13 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 (30 against 32; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 19, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, d.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19. Nf6+ gxf6 20. Bf4+ Kh8 21. Bxc7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f6 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Well found: bishop to f4 (+5.5).
- Strong! bishop to c7 is the sharp choice (+5.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead gxf6, then Bf4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 19. Nf6+ — knight to f6 with check
- gxf6 — pawn to f6 (capture)
- 20. Bf4+ — bishop to f4 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 21. Bxc7 — bishop to c7 (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.
Discovered check
The moving piece opens a check — and is free to grab anything meanwhile.
With a discovered check the moving piece unmasks a check from the piece standing behind it. While the king deals with the check, the piece that moved grabs whatever it likes, free of charge. Look for your long-range piece on a line with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. The rule: among all the ways to step aside, pick the one that captures or attacks the most expensive loot.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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