Pin: pawn to e2
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1147 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 b1, rook g1, bishop e6, knight e2, pawn b2 c2 a3.
Black: king h2, rook f4, pawn f3 a5 b6 c7.
7 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 59.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 5 points of material (14 against 9; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b1, the black king on h2.
It is Black to move on move 59, with 17 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
59... fxe2 60. Re1 Rf1 61. Kc1 Rxe1+
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e2 keeps the pressure (+4.9).
- Well found: rook to f1 (+4.9).
- Strong! rook to e1 is the sharp choice (+5.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Re1, then Rf1 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 59… fxe2 — pawn to e2 (capture)
- 60. Re1 — rook to e1
- Rf1 — rook to f1
- 61. Kc1 — king to c1
- Rxe1+ — rook to e1 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
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.
Passed pawn
Nothing can stop the passer — escort it to the last rank.
A passed pawn has no enemy pawns in front of it or on the neighboring files: only pieces can stop it. Check who can blockade the pawn or catch it with the king — if nobody can, the pawn is worth a whole piece. Push the passer with your pieces supporting it, and put your rook behind it. The beginner's mistake is shoving the pawn forward unprotected, straight into a capture.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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