Pin: knight to d5
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1164 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 a5, queen e2, rook a1, bishop c1, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c4.
Black: king e7, queen g3, rook b4, bishop c5, knight f2, pawn d6 e6 a7 c7 g7 h7.
8 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (23 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 a5, the black king on e7.
It is White to move on move 26, with 30 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, e, g, h.
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
26. Nd5+ Kd7 27. Nxb4 Bxb4+ 28. Kxb4
Why it works
- Great move! knight to d5 keeps the pressure (+2.2).
- Well found: knight to b4 (+2.3).
- Strong! king to b4 is the sharp choice (+2.5).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kd7, then Nxb4 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 26. Nd5+ — knight to d5 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 27. Nxb4 — knight to b4 (capture)
- Bxb4+ — bishop to b4 (capture) with check
- 28. Kxb4 — king to b4 (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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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