Pin: knight to f3 (e5·2)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1028 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black 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 d2, rook d1 f1, bishop a3, knight d6, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h2 e3 c5.
Black: king e7, queen g6, rook a8 h8, knight e5 f6, pawn a5 c6 e6 f7 g7 h7.
13 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 20.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (32 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 e7.
It is Black to move on move 20, with 43 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): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
20... Nf3+ 21. Kh1 Nxd2
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f3 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: knight to d2 (+3.8).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh1, then Nxd2 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 20… Nf3+ — knight to f3 with check
- 21. Kh1 — king to h1
- Nxd2 — knight to d2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 006
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