Rescue the pawn to e2
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The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2268 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 h1, queen c8, pawn g2 h3 f4 c5 b6.
Black: king h7, bishop g7, pawn e3 h5 a6 e6 g6 f7.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 5 points of material (14 against 9; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on h7.
It is Black to move on move 35, with 17 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): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
35... e2 36. Kh2 e1=Q 37. Qd7 h4
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e2 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: pawn to e1 (+4.6).
- Strong! pawn to h4 is the sharp choice (+4.3).
- You win decisive material (+4.3).
- If instead Kh2, then e1=Q and you win the pawn.
Move by move
- 35… e2 — pawn to e2
- 36. Kh2 — king to h2
- e1=Q — pawn to e1
- 37. Qd7 — queen to d7
- h4 — pawn to h4
Types in this puzzle
Promotion
The pawn reaches the last rank and becomes a queen — decisively.
Promotion turns a pawn on the last rank into a queen and rewrites the evaluation on the spot. In tactics the passer rarely walks in for free — usually a sacrifice clears its path. Count the tempi: how many moves does the pawn need, and can the defender stop it in time? And watch the promotion square itself — it must be out of enemy reach or won by force in your combination.
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.
Promotion race
Both sides push passers — win the race by a tempo.
A promotion race is a sprint between two passed pawns: both sides push toward the last rank, and victory goes to whoever queens first or queens with check. You will recognize it when both players have far-advanced passers that neither king can catch. Count the tempi literally, move by move, all the way to promotion. The classic mistake is spending a tempo on a "useful" move — in a race, almost any non-pawn move loses.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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