Deflection: rook to h3
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Difficulty 2413 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White 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.
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 g7, rook h7, pawn f6.
Black: king e8, rook f3, pawn h3.
3 white and 3 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 69.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 6 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g7, the black king on e8.
It is White to move on move 69, with 10 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 1 pawns, Black 1. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c, d, e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: h.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
69. Rxh3 Rxh3 70. f7+ Kd7 71. f8=Q
Why it works
- Brilliant! The rook on h3 is a sacrifice that works — you stand better (+2.3).
- Well found: pawn to f7 (+2.4).
- Strong! pawn to f8 is the sharp choice (+2.4).
- You win a piece — the pawn.
- If instead Rxh3, then f7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 69. Rxh3 — rook to h3 (capture)
- Rxh3 — rook to h3 (capture)
- 70. f7+ — pawn to f7 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 71. f8=Q — pawn to f8
Types in this puzzle
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
Promotion race
Both sides push passers — win the race by a tempo.
A promotion race is a sprint between two passed pawns: both sides push toward the last rank, and victory goes to whoever queens first or queens with check. You will recognize it when both players have far-advanced passers that neither king can catch. Count the tempi literally, move by move, all the way to promotion. The classic mistake is spending a tempo on a "useful" move — in a race, almost any non-pawn move loses.
Promotion
The pawn reaches the last rank and becomes a queen — decisively.
Promotion turns a pawn on the last rank into a queen and rewrites the evaluation on the spot. In tactics the passer rarely walks in for free — usually a sacrifice clears its path. Count the tempi: how many moves does the pawn need, and can the defender stop it in time? And watch the promotion square itself — it must be out of enemy reach or won by force in your combination.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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