Deflection: bishop to g2 (c6)
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 1913 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 g1, queen f1, rook d1 a3, bishop d6, pawn g2 f4 a5 e5 g5.
Black: king h7, queen g4, rook a8 d8, bishop c6, pawn h4 a6 g6 b7 g7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 42.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 27 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on h7.
It is Black to move on move 42, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, f.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
42... Bxg2 43. Qxg2 Qxd1+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to g2 keeps the pressure (+4.3).
- Well found: queen to d1 (+4.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qxg2, then Qxd1+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 42… Bxg2 — bishop to g2 (capture)
- 43. Qxg2 — queen to g2 (capture)
- Qxd1+ — queen to d1 (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.
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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