Pin: queen to h5
li-01PBgOpens 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.
Difficulty 1345 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 h1, queen f3, rook d1, bishop b1 c1, pawn a2 g2 b3 f4.
Black: king h7, queen b4, rook f8, bishop g7, knight h4, pawn a3 h5 e6 g6 c7 f7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (24 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on h7.
It is White to move on move 29, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, e, h.
White 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
29. Qxh5+ Kg8 30. Qxh4
Why it works
- Brilliant! The queen on h5 is a sacrifice that works — you are winning (+3.2).
- Well found: queen to h4 (+3.0).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Kg8, then Qxh4 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 29. Qxh5+ — queen to h5 (capture) with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 30. Qxh4 — queen to h4 (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 010
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