Win the hanging king on b7
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1944 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 c2, rook c6 b7, pawn f2 a3 g3 e5.
Black: king b8, queen g4, rook d8 g8, pawn b2 f5 a7.
8 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (23 against 22; 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 b8.
It is Black to move on move 31, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, g.
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
31... Kxb7 32. Rc7+ Kb8 33. Qxb2+ Kxc7
Why it works
- Great move! king to b7 keeps the pressure (+6.0).
- Well found: king to b8 (+6.9).
- Strong! king to c7 is the sharp choice (+7.1).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rc7+, then Kb8 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 31… Kxb7 — king to b7 (capture)
- 32. Rc7+ — rook to c7 with check
- Kb8 — king to b8
- 33. Qxb2+ — queen to b2 (capture) with check
- Kxc7 — king to c7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Deflection
Force the defender away from its duty — then strike what it guarded.
Deflection forces the guard to leave its post: a sacrifice or exchange drags it away from the piece or square it protects. First find the critical defender — the piece whose absence makes the mate or the material win possible. Then find the move it cannot ignore, which is usually a capture. Do not be stingy: if removing the guard wins the queen or mates, the sacrifice pays for itself many times over.
King evacuation
The king walks out of the danger zone on its own feet.
King evacuation: when the shelter collapses, the king walks out of the attack on his own feet — sometimes across half the board. A series of precise king moves carries him out of the firing zone, and the enemy attack dissolves. The signs: no direct defense works, but there is a route over unattacked squares to a quiet corner. Calculate the entire journey in advance — a king stranded halfway usually dies there.
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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