Deflection: rook to b6
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1950 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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.
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 a6, rook f1, bishop c3 b5, pawn b4 e4 g4 d5 h5.
Black: king e7, rook b8 f8, pawn g5 d6 f6 c7 h7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 39.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (16 against 15; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on a6, the black king on e7.
It is Black to move on move 39, with 19 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, e.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
39... Rb6+ 40. Ka7 Rxb5
Why it works
- Great move! rook to b6 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: rook to b5 (+3.7).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Ka7, then Rxb5 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 39… Rb6+ — rook to b6 with check
- 40. Ka7 — king to a7
- Rxb5 — rook to b5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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