Skewer: rook to f5
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 1858 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A skewer is a pin reversed — the valuable piece stands in front and, when it moves, the piece behind falls. Line your rook, bishop or queen up against the king or queen and win whatever is hiding behind it.
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 h6, rook h5, bishop h4, pawn a2 f2 c3 f3 c4 e4.
Black: king f7, queen d8, rook a8 f8, knight c5 e5, pawn d6 a7 b7 c7 e7.
10 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (23 against 30; 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 22, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, d.
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
22. Rf5+ Ke8 23. Rxf8+ Kd7 24. Rxd8+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f5 keeps the pressure (+3.4).
- Well found: rook to f8 (+3.6).
- Strong! rook to d8 is the sharp choice (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Ke8, then Rxf8+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 22. Rf5+ — rook to f5 with check
- Ke8 — king to e8
- 23. Rxf8+ — rook to f8 (capture) with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 24. Rxd8+ — rook to d8 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
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.
Skewer
A line attack forces the valuable piece to move, exposing the one behind it.
A skewer is a pin turned inside out: the valuable piece stands in front and something cheaper hides behind it. The big piece must step aside, and you collect the one that was sheltering in its shadow. Scan for the enemy king or queen sharing a file, rank or diagonal with another enemy piece. The deadliest version comes with check — the king moves, the rook behind it dies.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 013
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