Trap the rook on a1
li-0LJZROpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Trapped piece: an enemy piece has no safe squares — catch it.
Difficulty 1806 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 e2, queen b2, rook c1, bishop d3, pawn g2 e3 d4.
Black: king f7, queen a4, rook d6, bishop e7, pawn f5 c6 e6 g6.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 47.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (20 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e2, the black king on f7.
It is White to move on move 47, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, f.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
47. Ra1 Qxa1 48. Qxa1
Why it works
- Great move! rook to a1 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: queen to a1 (+4.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxa1, then Qxa1 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 47. Ra1 — rook to a1
- Qxa1 — queen to a1 (capture)
- 48. Qxa1 — queen to a1 (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 013
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