Deflection: pawn to h5 (h4·2)
li-0Mub2naming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1922 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 e3, rook f4, pawn c3 a4 e4 h4 d5.
Black: king g6, rook f7, pawn b4 d6 h6 a7 c7 g7.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (10 against 11; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e3, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 34, with 18 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, g.
The White king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
34. h5+ Kxh5 35. Rxf7
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to h5 keeps the pressure (+6.3).
- Well found: rook to f7 (+6.5).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kxh5, then Rxf7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 34. h5+ — pawn to h5 with check
- Kxh5 — king to h5 (capture)
- 35. Rxf7 — rook to f7 (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.
Rook endgame
The most common endgame — activity decides everything.
The rook endgame is the most common of all: rooks and pawns on the board. Its first law is activity — a rook behind a passed pawn beats a rook passively babysitting one. The sign of a correct plan is that your rook is attacking something, not guarding something. The typical error is locking your rook into defense: it is often better to give up a pawn and keep your rook and king active.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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