A friendly piece moves off a ray and unmasks an attack against an enemy piece by a friendly slider standing behind it on that ray.
Cite this entryChessGrammar (2026). Discovered Attack. In: ChessGrammar: A reference for chess concepts, Tactics grammar, edition v3.0. Entry cg:discovered_attack@1. https://chessgrammar.com/motifs/tactics/discovered-attack
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Start position
the definition and its boundary
Bc5+
The nearest counter-case is a piece that leaves the line in front of a friendly piece that does not slide, such as a knight. Nothing is revealed at all, no matter how forcing the move looks. Only a sliding piece, a rook, bishop or queen, can attack along a line from behind. The counter-example shows exactly this case.
A knight stands on d8 instead of the rook. Bc5+ is still check and the bishop still leaves the d-file. A knight does not attack along a line, so nothing is revealed. White answers the check, and the knight on d5 is never attacked.
3n2k1/7p/3b4/p2N4/P4p2/1P5P/1P4P1/5RK1 b - - 0 34the variants
The forms below are grouped by the feature they describe. A feature may have no separate named form. Open a form to read its criteria and see its examples.
Discovered Checkdiscovery check
The revealed target is the king.
Discovered Attack on the Queen
The revealed target is the queen.
Discovered Attack on the Rook
The revealed target is a rook.
Double Discovered Attacktwin discovery
The move reveals two friendly sliders at once, not one.
King Discovered Attackroyal discovery
The blocker is the king.
Pawn Discovered Attack
The blocker is a pawn.
Discovered Attack plus Fork
The same trigger also realizes a Fork.
Discovered Attack plus Pin
A pin touches one of the revelation's two poles after the move.
forms the literature names but the taxonomy does not carry as entries of their own
Masked Discovered Attackmasked battery
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
Windmillsee-saw
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
Line Clearanceline-opening move
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
Clearance Sacrificeclearing sacrifice
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
Pawn Clearancepawn-sacrifice line opening
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
Bristol ClearanceBristol theme
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
Turton ClearanceTurton doubling
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
Loyd-Turton ClearanceLoyd-Turton doubling
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
Brunner-Turton ClearanceBrunner-Turton doubling
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
Zepler DoublingZepler theme
Descriptive — catalogued for teaching, without a formal predicate.
the corpus
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