Discovered check — what it means in chess
A discovered attack whose unveiled threat is a check.
A discovered attack whose unveiled threat is a check.
A discovered check is a discovered attack where the piece unveiled gives check. Because the opponent has to answer the check, the piece you moved to reveal it can go almost anywhere and do almost anything — grab a queen, fork two rooks — and they cannot stop it, because they are busy getting out of check. It is one of the sharpest weapons in chess for exactly that reason.
Discovered check is the sharpest form of the discovered attack family precisely because check must be answered before anything else. The unveiled piece pins the opponent's reply to one option — get the king safe — and the moving piece is briefly untouchable. That immunity is what lets it land on squares it would never survive under normal rules: the middle of the board, next to a queen, in the mouth of a rook. When you see your own long-range piece lined up on the enemy king with one of your pieces in between, the question is not whether to move — it is where to move that costs the opponent the most.
[[board startfen="4k3/pp5p/6q1/4N3/8/8/8/2K1R3 w - - 0 1" pgn="1. Nxg6 Kd8" caption="A discovered check: the knight captures the queen while unveiling check from the rook." notes="White to move. The rook on e1 hides behind its own knight, aimed at the enemy king down the e-file. Nxg6 — the knight grabs the queen, and leaving the e-file it unveils Re1+, a discovered check. Black must answer the check, so the knight can't be recaptured. The king moves out of check — and White has won the queen for nothing."]]
The Endgame Society glossary defines more than 240 chess terms — rules, notation, tactics, strategy, pawn structures, endgames, and openings — in language a beginner can act on rather than dictionary shorthand.