Chess tactics
Hanging Piece: Find Undefended Material
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A hanging piece is undefended and exposed to capture. It is genuinely "free" only when taking it does not lose equal or greater value to a recapture, tactic, or counter-threat. A defended piece under several attacks is contested or overloaded, not automatically hanging.
On this page
Hanging Piece: what it is and how it works
Counting attackers and defenders is a useful first pass, not a verdict. The values and order of the captures matter, as do pins, x-rays, zwischenzugs, and the safety of the capturing piece. One attacker against no defenders can still be a poisoned capture; three attackers against two defenders can still lose the exchange if the wrong-valued piece captures first.
A piece may become loose when its defender moves, when an exchange removes a guard, or when a forcing move deflects that guard. Re-scan after every move, then calculate the capture to a quiet position. "Loose pieces drop off" is a prompt to investigate, not a rule that every loose piece can be taken immediately.
How to spot it over the board
- After every opponent move, scan for undefended pieces, then ask whether each available capture is tactically safe.
- Count attackers and defenders, but also compare their values and calculate the likely capture order.
- Watch for pieces that become loose after a trade or a forced king move — defenders move too.
- Check your own pieces the same way before you commit; the piece you forget is the piece that hangs.
A common calculation error
The practical error is stopping at the label "undefended". Before taking, check checks, captures, and threats for both sides, including whether a nominal defender is pinned and whether the apparent prize is bait. Before making your own move, note which defensive relationships it changes.
How hard are these puzzles?
This collection contains 34 hanging piece puzzles, with a recorded median rating of 1138 and a dataset range from 437 to 2062. Puzzle ratings are estimates produced by results in their source pool; they can change and should be read as a guide for choosing practice, not as an objective measure of difficulty.
- Puzzles tagged
- 34
- Lowest recorded rating
- 437
- Recorded median
- 1138
- Highest recorded rating
- 2062
Hanging Piece puzzles to solve
These positions come from the LibreChess trainer and are ordered by the rating stored in this dataset. Play your candidate move on the board, then compare it with the listed solution and replay the continuation.
Worked example 1 — rated 437
Black to move. Find the hanging piece, then reveal the solution.
33... Rxd1#Worked example 2 — rated 838
White to move. Find the hanging piece, then reveal the solution.
29. Qxa8+ 29... Rc8 30. Qxc8#Worked example 3 — rated 1153
Black to move. Find the hanging piece, then reveal the solution.
37... gxh6 38. Rxg8+ 38... Nxg8Worked example 4 — rated 1458
Black to move. Find the hanging piece, then reveal the solution.
58... Kxd8 59. Kf6 59... Ke8 60. e6 60... fxe6Worked example 5 — rated 2062
Black to move. Find the hanging piece, then reveal the solution.
26... Rxe1 27. Qg7+ 27... Ke8 28. Qxf7+ 28... Kd8 29. Qe7+ 29... Rxe7Keep training by rating
Choose a rating band as a starting point. If the positions are routinely immediate or opaque, move one band up or down; puzzle ratings are pool estimates rather than fixed grades.