Pin: queen to h3 (d7)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1479 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 f2, queen b2, rook a6 c6, pawn g2 f3 e4 b5 d5.
Black: king g7, queen d7, rook h2 b7, pawn c5 d6 f6 g6 h7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 24 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on f2, the black king on g7.
It is Black to move on move 35, with 31 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, e.
The Black king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
35... Qh3 36. Ke3 Rxg2 37. Qxg2 Qxg2
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h3 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: rook to g2 (+4.8).
- Strong! queen to g2 is the sharp choice (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Ke3, then Rxg2 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 35… Qh3 — queen to h3
- 36. Ke3 — king to e3
- Rxg2 — rook to g2 (capture)
- 37. Qxg2 — queen to g2 (capture)
- Qxg2 — queen to g2 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Winning exchange
A forced series of captures on one square ends in your favour.
A winning exchange is a forced series of captures on one square that leaves you ahead in material. It is pure arithmetic: count the attackers and defenders of the square and note the value of every piece in the queue. Capture in the right order — cheap pieces first, expensive ones later — or a winning trade turns into a losing one. The classic error is stopping the count halfway and missing the opponent's final recapture.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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