Rescue the king to d8 (e7)
li-0PNxenaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2397 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 f5, rook a1 d1, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 d6.
Black: king e7, queen b6, rook h6 h8, pawn e5 a7 b7 f7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (24 against 23; 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 e7.
It is Black to move on move 29, with 5 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: d, g.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29... Kd8 30. Qg5+ f6 31. Qxh6 Rxh6
Why it works
- Great move! king to d8 keeps the pressure (+4.0).
- Well found: pawn to f6 (+4.1).
- Strong! rook to h6 is the sharp choice (+4.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qg5+, then f6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 29… Kd8 — king to d8
- 30. Qg5+ — queen to g5 with check
- f6 — pawn to f6
- 31. Qxh6 — queen to h6 (capture)
- Rxh6 — rook to h6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads