Discovered attack: queen to g6
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1904 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 g6, rook a1 f1, bishop g3, knight f3 e5, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 d4.
Black: king g8, queen f6, rook a8 f8, bishop d6, knight b8, pawn d5 g5 h6 a7 b7 c7 g7.
12 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (33 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 g1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 18, with 30 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f.
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
18... Qxg6 19. Nxg6 Rxf3 20. Bxd6 cxd6
Why it works
- Brilliant! The queen on g6 is a sacrifice that works — you stand better (+2.3).
- Well found: rook to f3 (+2.1).
- Strong! pawn to d6 is the sharp choice (+2.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Nxg6, then Rxf3 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 18… Qxg6 — queen to g6 (capture)
- 19. Nxg6 — knight to g6 (capture)
- Rxf3 — rook to f3 (capture)
- 20. Bxd6 — bishop to d6 (capture)
- cxd6 — pawn to d6 (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.
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.
Simplification
Trade the heavy pieces and steer into a won endgame.
Simplification is how you convert an advantage: by trading queens and rooks you extinguish the counterplay and steer the game into a won endgame. The rule is simple — the side with extra material trades pieces but keeps pawns. Look for exchanges once the material is already won and your opponent is still rattling threats. The mistake is avoiding the queen trade and letting him muddy the water forever.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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