X-Ray Puzzles

Great tactical players see the whole line, not just the first piece on it. An x-ray attack is when a rook, bishop, or queen exerts its power through an enemy piece to a target on the far side — winning material that looks perfectly safe. X-ray puzzles train that line vision. The set below is live and drawn from real games; solve a few and you’ll stop stopping at the first piece and start seeing what’s hiding behind it.

How to use this page

• Follow every rook, bishop, and queen line past the first piece it meets.
• Ask what sits behind the obvious target — that’s usually the real prize.
• Missed it? Trace the line and name the piece your attacker was seeing through.

What is an x-ray attack, exactly?

An x-ray attack happens when a long-range piece — rook, bishop, or queen — projects its influence through an enemy piece on the same rank, file, or diagonal, hitting a target behind it. The piece in the middle doesn’t really block the attack; it just gets “seen through,” like an x-ray revealing the bone behind the skin. In the attacking version, the front piece is effectively frozen — if it moves, your piece captures the more valuable one behind it — so you pile on and win it. There’s also a defensive x-ray, where one of your pieces guards another through an enemy piece on the line. The x-ray is the family that the pin and skewer belong to. For the full breakdown, read our guide to the x-ray attack.

How to spot an x-ray (the cues that matter)

1. Follow the full line. Don’t stop at the first enemy piece your rook, bishop, or queen meets. Keep going — the target is often the second piece on the line.
2. Look for stacked enemy pieces. Two or three enemy pieces on one rank, file, or diagonal are a flashing x-ray signal.
3. Freeze the front piece. If moving the front piece would expose a queen or rook behind it, it’s paralyzed — attack it again and win it.
4. Check defensive x-rays too. If your piece seems to “abandon” a friend but still covers it through an enemy blocker, that’s a defense your opponent may have missed.
5. Mind the value order. Like the pin and skewer, an x-ray pays off based on which piece is in front and which is behind. Get the geometry right.

Common mistakes to dodge

• Only reading the first piece. The whole point of an x-ray is what’s behind the obvious target. Train yourself to look one square further.
• Confusing an enemy blocker with a real block. A friendly piece blocks your line; an enemy piece in the middle is often just a curtain your power passes through.
• Mislabeling the tactic. X-ray, pin, and skewer look alike but change who moves first and what you win. Nail the geometry before you commit.
• Forgetting it cuts both ways. Two of your own pieces on a line can be x-rayed in return. Check whether the opponent is seeing through your pieces too.

Keep training

• Get the full theory: what an x-ray attack is, attacking and defensive.
• Drill the two siblings in the family: pin puzzles and skewer puzzles.
• See line vision powering a monster combination: windmill puzzles.
• Back to the full puzzle library.

X-ray puzzle FAQ

What’s the difference between an x-ray, a pin, and a skewer? X-ray is the family name for a piece seeing through another on a line. A pin has the valuable piece behind (front piece stuck); a skewer has it in front (forced to move). Both are specific x-ray patterns.

What’s a defensive x-ray? When one of your pieces defends another through an enemy piece on the same line — so a target that looks undefended is actually guarded.

Which pieces can x-ray? Only the long-range pieces: rook, bishop, and queen. They’re the ones that project power down full lines.

Where do these puzzles come from? Real positions from the Lichess open puzzle database (CC0), each engine-verified at the source.

Curated and written by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team (AI-assisted, human-edited) · Puzzles from the Lichess open database (CC0) · Last verified 2026-07-13 · How we verify content.