Discovered attack: rook to g5
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1824 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 e2, queen g4, rook a1 f5, bishop d3, pawn g2 a3 c4 e4 b5.
Black: king c8, queen h2, rook d8 g8, bishop e3, pawn d4 e5 a7 b7 c7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 27 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on e2, the black king on c8.
It is White to move on move 28, with 37 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): f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28. Rg5+ Kb8 29. Rxg8
Why it works
- Great move! rook to g5 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Well found: rook to g8 (+5.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kb8, then Rxg8 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 28. Rg5+ — rook to g5 with check
- Kb8 — king to b8
- 29. Rxg8 — rook to g8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Battery
Two pieces stacked on one line — the front one strikes with double force.
A battery stacks two long-range pieces on one line — a queen behind a bishop on a diagonal, or doubled rooks on a file. The front piece strikes with double force: capture it, and the piece behind recaptures with even more pressure. The battery is ready when both pieces already stare at one point and only the front strike is missing. Build batteries in advance on lines leading to the king — the doubling itself often breeds the combination.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 013
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