Pin: bishop to h6 (g7)
li-052Vznaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1187 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 c1, queen e3, rook d1, knight c3, pawn b2 c2 f2 g2 h3 a4 e4.
Black: king b7, queen e7, rook h8, bishop g7, pawn e5 h5 a6 b6 e6 g6 c7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
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 c1, the black king on b7.
It is Black to move on move 22, with 35 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f.
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
22... Bh6 23. Qxh6 Rxh6
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to h6 keeps the pressure (+5.4).
- Well found: rook to h6 (+5.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxh6, then Rxh6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 22… Bh6 — bishop to h6
- 23. Qxh6 — queen to h6 (capture)
- Rxh6 — rook to h6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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 007
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