Win the hanging queen on c3
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 2044 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 h2, queen b1, bishop e3, knight c1 c3, pawn g2 h3 e4 d5 b6.
Black: king g8, queen a1, bishop b7 d8, knight e8, pawn e5 d6 g6 h7.
10 white and 9 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 h2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 31, with 31 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, c, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
31... Qxc3 32. Qb5 Nf6
Why it works
- Great move! queen to c3 keeps the pressure (+2.1).
- Well found: knight to f6 (+2.2).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Qb5, then Nf6 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 31… Qxc3 — queen to c3 (capture)
- 32. Qb5 — queen to b5
- Nf6 — knight to f6
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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