Discovered attack: queen to g8
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 1810 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 g5, rook a1 e1, bishop c4 h4, pawn a2 c2 f2 g2 h2 c3 e4.
Black: king f8, queen e7, rook a8 h8, bishop c8, knight d8 g8, pawn e5 d6 a7 b7 c7.
13 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (32 against 33; 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 f8.
It is White to move on move 18, with 44 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 5. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: b, d.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
18. Qxg8+ Rxg8 19. Bxe7+ Kxe7 20. Bxg8
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g8 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: bishop to e7 (+4.7).
- Strong! bishop to g8 is the sharp choice (+4.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rxg8, then Bxe7+ and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 18. Qxg8+ — queen to g8 (capture) with check
- Rxg8 — rook to g8 (capture)
- 19. Bxe7+ — bishop to e7 (capture) with check
- Kxe7 — king to e7 (capture)
- 20. Bxg8 — bishop to g8 (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.
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 013
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