Win the hanging rook on d3 (d1)
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 2159 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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 h5, rook d1 f1, knight g5, pawn a2 b2 f2 c3 h3 g4.
Black: king g8, queen f4, rook a8 f8, bishop d3 b6, knight c6, pawn a4 d5 d6 b7 f7 g7.
11 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 6 points of material (28 against 34; 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 22, with 25 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
22. Rxd3 Rfe8 23. Rf3 Qxg5 24. Qxg5
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d3 keeps the pressure (+3.0).
- Well found: rook to f3 (+3.2).
- Strong! queen to g5 is the sharp choice (+3.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rfe8, then Rf3 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 22. Rxd3 — rook to d3 (capture)
- Rfe8 — rook to e8
- 23. Rf3 — rook to f3
- Qxg5 — queen to g5 (capture)
- 24. Qxg5 — queen to g5 (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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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