Discovered attack: rook to f2
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2075 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black 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 g1, queen g4, rook a1 f1, bishop e3, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 g2 h2 d4.
Black: king g8, queen d7, rook f5, bishop g7 a8, pawn b6 d6 g6 a7 e7 h7.
12 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (29 against 26; 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 Black to move on move 17, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: c, f.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
17... Rxf2 18. Rxf2 Qxg4
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f2 keeps the pressure (+3.9).
- Well found: queen to g4 (+4.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rxf2, then Qxg4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 17… Rxf2 — rook to f2 (capture)
- 18. Rxf2 — rook to f2 (capture)
- Qxg4 — queen to g4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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.
Clearance
Clear your own piece out of the way — with tempo — for the decisive blow.
Clearance is about your own piece standing in the way of the decisive blow — so you move it aside, or even throw it away. The key is to clear with tempo: jump off with a check, a capture or a threat, giving the opponent no time to regroup. The telltale sign: you see a crushing queen or rook move, but one of your own pieces blocks the line or occupies the square. Do not cling to it — a clearance sacrifice usually costs less than a missed attack.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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