Pin: rook to f1
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1486 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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, rook d2, bishop e5, knight e3, pawn g2 c3 h3 e4 f4.
Black: king e7, rook a1, bishop c4 b6, pawn b5 g6 h6 c7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 44.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (16 against 15; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on e7.
It is Black to move on move 44, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, f.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
44... Rf1+ 45. Kg3 Bxe3
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f1 keeps the pressure (+5.2).
- Well found: bishop to e3 (+5.3).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Kg3, then Bxe3 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 44… Rf1+ — rook to f1 with check
- 45. Kg3 — king to g3
- Bxe3 — bishop to e3 (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.
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.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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