Pin: knight to c5 (a4)
li-05fbjnaming 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 1912 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 b2, queen b5, rook d1 e1, bishop g2, knight a4, pawn c2 h2 a3 e3 g3 d4 f4.
Black: king b7, queen d7, rook d8 g8, bishop g7, knight a7, pawn d5 f5 b6 e6 c7 f7 h7.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 32 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on b2, the black king on b7.
It is White to move on move 24, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: b.
The White king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Nc5+ Ka8 25. Qxd7 Rxd7 26. Nxd7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to c5 keeps the pressure (+5.3).
- Well found: queen to d7 (+5.2).
- Strong! knight to d7 is the sharp choice (+5.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Ka8, then Qxd7 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 24. Nc5+ — knight to c5 with check
- Ka8 — king to a8
- 25. Qxd7 — queen to d7 (capture)
- Rxd7 — rook to d7 (capture)
- 26. Nxd7 — knight to d7 (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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
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).
Pack 014
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