In this level, your opponent is attacking one of your pieces. You must block the attack.

Blocking the attack means that you put one of your pieces between the attacking piece, and the piece being under attack. This is possible only if the attacking piece has a long-range attack, so it must be a queen, rook, or bishop. It can’t be a pawn, king, or knight, because pawns and kings can only attack pieces next to them, and knights can jump over any pieces.

When you block an attack, the blocking piece will be in the “line of fire” and be under attack now. Be careful that this new attack doesn’t have a bad outcome - or at least that you’re minimizing your losses! Here are three examples of blocking moves:

• In the first diagram, Black’s rook is attacking White’s queen. Blocking the attack with the rook would be a good defense, because the rook would be protected by the queen.
• In the second diagram, Black’s rook is attacking White’s bishop. Blocking the attack with the queen would be a bad defense, because the rook could then capture the queen.
• In the third diagram, Black’s bishop is attacking White’s queen. Blocking with the rook would still lose the exchange, but that is better than losing the queen if no other defenses are available.

So when is it better to block an attack instead of moving to a safe square? When:

• There is no safe square available.
• The attacked piece is pinned, meaning there is a more valuable piece or the king behind it and therefore it can’t move away.
• The attacked piece has an important task that it can’t fulfill if moved away. For example, the attacked piece might be protecting another piece or square.

Examples

The bishop on f8 is attacking the rook on b4. The rook can’t run away, because the squares c4 and a4 are guarded by the pawn on b3, which is protected by the rook on b2. Black should block the attack with 1...Nd6. On d6, the knight is protected by the king, so this is a good block.

The white rook on b8 is attacking black’s queen on d8.
Black's queen cannot run away, as that would leave the black king in check (the queen is "pinned").
Capturing the rook with Qxb8 would lose the queen to Bxb8.
However, black can block the attack with the correct move 1...Rc8!