Discovered attack: knight to d4 (c6)
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2247 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 g1, queen a4, rook a1 d1, bishop e2 g3, knight f3, pawn b2 f2 g2 h2 a3 e3 c4 e5.
Black: king b8, queen d7, rook d8 h8, bishop e4 g7, knight c6, pawn d5 g5 h6 a7 b7 c7 f7.
15 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (36 against 35; 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 b8.
It is Black to move on move 15, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: 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
15... Nd4 16. Rxd4 Qxa4
Why it works
- Great move! knight to d4 keeps the pressure (+2.9).
- Well found: queen to a4 (+3.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rxd4, then Qxa4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 15… Nd4 — knight to d4
- 16. Rxd4 — rook to d4 (capture)
- Qxa4 — queen to a4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Clearance
Clear your own piece out of the way — with tempo — for the decisive blow.
Clearance is about your own piece standing in the way of the decisive blow — so you move it aside, or even throw it away. The key is to clear with tempo: jump off with a check, a capture or a threat, giving the opponent no time to regroup. The telltale sign: you see a crushing queen or rook move, but one of your own pieces blocks the line or occupies the square. Do not cling to it — a clearance sacrifice usually costs less than a missed attack.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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