Skewer: queen to f2
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 2506 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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.
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 b2, queen b4, rook b1 e5, knight b3, pawn f2 h2 a3 c3.
Black: king g8, queen f8, rook a7 a8, pawn d5 g5 e6 g7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (26 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 b2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 32, with 33 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a, c, f, h.
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
32... Qxf2+ 33. Kc1 Qg1+ 34. Kd2 Qxb1
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f2 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: queen to g1 (+4.5).
- Strong! queen to b1 is the sharp choice (+4.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kc1, then Qg1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 32… Qxf2+ — queen to f2 (capture) with check
- 33. Kc1 — king to c1
- Qg1+ — queen to g1 with check
- 34. Kd2 — king to d2
- Qxb1 — queen to b1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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