Win the hanging bishop on g6
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Difficulty 1899 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 g1, queen b3, rook a1 e1, bishop c4 f4, knight g6, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h2 c3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen e7, rook b8 f8, bishop f5 d6, knight f6, pawn c6 e6 h6 a7 b7 f7 g7.
14 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 14.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 35 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 14, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: d.
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
14... Bxg6 15. Bxd6 Qxd6
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to g6 keeps the pressure (+5.1).
- Well found: queen to d6 (+5.1).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Bxd6, then Qxd6 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 14… Bxg6 — bishop to g6 (capture)
- 15. Bxd6 — bishop to d6 (capture)
- Qxd6 — queen to d6 (capture)
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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