Pin: rook to e1
li-02a9LOpens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
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 1134 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 g1, queen f4, rook e1, bishop b6, pawn b2 f2 g2 c3 h3 a4.
Black: king h8, rook e5 d7, bishop g7, pawn f5 a6 g6 b7 e7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (23 against 19; 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 h8.
It is Black to move on move 34, with 26 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
34... Rxe1+ 35. Kh2 Be5 36. Qxe5+ Rxe5
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e1 keeps the pressure (+7.1).
- Well found: bishop to e5 (+7.2).
- Strong! rook to e5 is the sharp choice (+7.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh2, then Be5 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 34… Rxe1+ — rook to e1 (capture) with check
- 35. Kh2 — king to h2
- Be5 — bishop to e5
- 36. Qxe5+ — queen to e5 (capture) with check
- Rxe5 — rook to e5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
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 007
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads