Pin: queen to f7 (h5·2)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2371 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A pin freezes a piece in front of a more valuable one behind it. Scan the ranks, files and diagonals your bishop, rook or queen controls: if an enemy piece cannot move without exposing its king or queen, it is pinned and can be piled on or bypassed.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen h5, rook a1 f1, bishop e3, pawn a2 b2 g2 h2 c3 d4 e5.
Black: king g8, queen d7, rook a8 h8, bishop e4 e7, pawn d5 c6 h6 a7 b7 g7.
12 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (29 against 31; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 18, with 45 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
18. Qf7+ Kh7 19. Rf6 Bxf6 20. Qxd7
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f7 keeps the pressure (+3.4).
- Well found: rook to f6 (+3.6).
- Strong! queen to d7 is the sharp choice (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh7, then Rf6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 18. Qf7+ — queen to f7 with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 19. Rf6 — rook to f6
- Bxf6 — bishop to f6 (capture)
- 20. Qxd7 — queen to d7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Relative pin
A piece shields a more valuable one behind it — moving it loses material.
In a relative pin the piece shields not its king but something valuable behind it, usually the queen. Moving is legal but costly, because the piece behind falls. Look for three units on one line: your long-range piece, a cheaper enemy piece, and an expensive one hiding behind. Beware the classic trap — a relatively pinned piece can still move with check or a bigger threat, so verify before you cash in.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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