Pin: king to h6
li-01273Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1777 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 h3, queen e4, bishop c7, pawn a2 h2 c3 f3 d4 g4.
Black: king g6, queen e2, knight e3, pawn g5 b6 f6 a7 h7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (18 against 17; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h3, the black king on g6.
It is Black to move on move 36, with 5 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c, d.
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
36... Kh6 37. Qxe3 Qxe3
Why it works
- Great move! king to h6 keeps the pressure (+7.3).
- Well found: queen to e3 (+7.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe3, then Qxe3 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 36… Kh6 — king to h6
- 37. Qxe3 — queen to e3 (capture)
- Qxe3 — queen to e3 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Queen endgame
Queens on an open board — precision above all.
Queen endgames are treacherous: the queen reaches everywhere, and one slip turns a win into perpetual check. The signs are few pawns, exposed kings, and checks hanging in the air. Tuck your king away early, and use your own checks to bring the queen closer or push your passer with tempo. The typical mistake is grabbing pawns while leaving your king exposed to endless checks.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads