Pin: knight to e7
li-05HWiOpens 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 1873 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 g1, queen h6, rook a1 f1, bishop b3, knight f3 d5, pawn c2 f2 g2 h2 a3 d3 b4 e4.
Black: king g8, queen d8, rook a8 f8, bishop g4 e7, knight c6 h7, pawn b5 e5 a6 d6 c7 f7.
15 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (36 against 37; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 15, with 48 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
15. Nxe7+ Qxe7 16. Qg6+ Kh8 17. Qxg4
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e7 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: queen to g6 (+3.3).
- Strong! queen to g4 is the sharp choice (+3.4).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qxe7, then Qg6+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 15. Nxe7+ — knight to e7 (capture) with check
- Qxe7 — queen to e7 (capture)
- 16. Qg6+ — queen to g6 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 17. Qxg4 — queen to g4 (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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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