Trap the bishop on e3
li-0KH6QOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Trapped piece: an enemy piece has no safe squares — catch it.
Difficulty 1877 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A trapped piece has no safe square. Spot an enemy piece that has wandered offside or been hemmed in, then play the move that takes away its last escape and wins it — often a quiet pawn push or a covering minor piece.
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 h1, queen d1, rook a1 e1, bishop c1 b3, knight f3, pawn a2 b2 c2.
Black: king g8, queen f2, rook a8 f8, bishop g3 f5, pawn c6 a7 b7 c7 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (31 against 32; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 16, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, g, h.
The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
16. Be3 Qxe1+ 17. Nxe1
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e3 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: knight to e1 (+3.9).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe1+, then Nxe1 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 16. Be3 — bishop to e3
- Qxe1+ — queen to e1 (capture) with check
- 17. Nxe1 — knight to e1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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