Rescue the knight to f7 (g5)
li-0QKktnaming 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 2278 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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 d1, rook a1 f1, bishop c4, knight b1 g5, pawn a2 g2 h2 c3 d3 e3 b4 e4.
Black: king g8, queen d8, rook a8 f8, bishop g4, knight c6 f6, pawn e5 a6 d6 b7 c7 f7 g7 h7.
15 white and 15 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 11.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 36 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 11, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: f.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
11. Nxf7 Rxf7 12. Bxf7+ Kf8 13. Qb3
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f7 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: bishop to f7 (+3.2).
- Strong! queen to b3 is the sharp choice (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxf7, then Bxf7+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 11. Nxf7 — knight to f7 (capture)
- Rxf7 — rook to f7 (capture)
- 12. Bxf7+ — bishop to f7 (capture) with check
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 13. Qb3 — queen to b3
Types in this puzzle
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.
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.
Winning exchange
A forced series of captures on one square ends in your favour.
A winning exchange is a forced series of captures on one square that leaves you ahead in material. It is pure arithmetic: count the attackers and defenders of the square and note the value of every piece in the queue. Capture in the right order — cheap pieces first, expensive ones later — or a winning trade turns into a losing one. The classic error is stopping the count halfway and missing the opponent's final recapture.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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