Discovered attack: queen to d6
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Difficulty 2377 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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 h4, queen f4, rook h1, bishop d5, pawn a2 b3 c4.
Black: king g6, queen d3, rook f5 e8, pawn b4 a5 d6 h6 g7.
7 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 39.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (20 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 h4, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 39, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, g, h.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
39. Qxd6+ Kh7 40. Bg8+ Kxg8 41. Qxd3
Why it works
- Great move! queen to d6 keeps the pressure (+3.0).
- Well found: bishop to g8 (+3.0).
- Strong! queen to d3 is the sharp choice (+3.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh7, then Bg8+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 39. Qxd6+ — queen to d6 (capture) with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 40. Bg8+ — bishop to g8 with check
- Kxg8 — king to g8 (capture)
- 41. Qxd3 — queen to d3 (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.
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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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