Pin: rook to h2
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1819 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 c2, rook g2, pawn a2 b3.
Black: king h7, queen h3, rook g6, pawn a7 f7 g7.
5 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 41.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (16 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 h1, the black king on h7.
It is White to move on move 41, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, g.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
41. Rh2 Qxh2+ 42. Kxh2
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h2 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: king to h2 (+4.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxh2+, then Kxh2 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 41. Rh2 — rook to h2
- Qxh2+ — queen to h2 (capture) with check
- 42. Kxh2 — king to h2 (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.
Blocking save
Block the check with tempo — and turn the game around.
The blocking save: you interpose a piece against the check — not passively, but with tempo, so the blocker creates a threat of its own. Such a block turns defense into attack. Whenever you are checked, compare all three replies — capture, move the king, interpose — and among the interpositions hunt for the one that counterattacks. The mistake is automatically stepping aside with the king when an active block would have turned the game around.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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