Deflection: queen to d6 (c7)
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 2514 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 b5, rook a1 d1, bishop d6, knight f3, pawn g2 c3 h3 e4 c6.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook a8 e8, bishop f2, knight f6, pawn e5 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 29; 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 Black to move on move 24, with 46 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, b, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24... Qxd6 25. Rxd6 Rxa1+ 26. Kh2 Nxe4
Why it works
- Brilliant! The queen on d6 is a sacrifice that works — you stand better (+2.4).
- Well found: rook to a1 (+2.9).
- Strong! knight to e4 is the sharp choice (+3.5).
- You reach a winning position (+3.5).
- If instead Rxd6, then Rxa1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 24… Qxd6 — queen to d6 (capture)
- 25. Rxd6 — rook to d6 (capture)
- Rxa1+ — rook to a1 (capture) with check
- 26. Kh2 — king to h2
- Nxe4 — knight to e4 (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.
Overload
One defender guards two things — it cannot do both jobs.
Overloading exploits a defender with two jobs at once — guarding a piece and covering a mating square, for instance. It cannot do both: your first strike forces it to handle one duty and abandon the other. Find the overworked piece by asking what happens to each of its charges if it gets distracted. Then hit one target and collect the other — an overloaded defender only pretends to defend.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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