Discovered attack: rook to c4
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2189 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 g2, queen c3, rook c1 c6, pawn f2 a3 e3 g3 h3 b4.
Black: king g8, queen b7, rook e4 e8, pawn d5 a7 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (25 against 24; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 28, with 40 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): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, e.
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
28... Rc4 29. Rxc4 d4+ 30. Kg1 dxc3
Why it works
- Great move! rook to c4 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: pawn to d4 (+3.4).
- Strong! pawn to c3 is the sharp choice (+3.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rxc4, then d4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 28… Rc4 — rook to c4
- 29. Rxc4 — rook to c4 (capture)
- d4+ — pawn to d4 with check
- 30. Kg1 — king to g1
- dxc3 — pawn to c3 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Rook fork
The rook attacks two targets along rank and file at the same time.
A rook fork attacks two targets from one square — one along the file, the other along the rank. Look for enemy pieces standing at a right angle to each other, both visible from a single safe square. This is bread and butter in endgames, where a rook check picks up loose pieces and pawns along the way. Test every rook check you have: does it also hit something valuable on the other line?
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.
Discovered check
The moving piece opens a check — and is free to grab anything meanwhile.
With a discovered check the moving piece unmasks a check from the piece standing behind it. While the king deals with the check, the piece that moved grabs whatever it likes, free of charge. Look for your long-range piece on a line with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. The rule: among all the ways to step aside, pick the one that captures or attacks the most expensive loot.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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