Pin: queen to e8
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1750 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 d1, queen g6, rook c1 e1, bishop d6, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h2 e5.
Black: king c8, queen b5, rook d7 h7, knight f5, pawn g4 d5 h5 b6 e6 a7 c7.
11 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (28 against 29; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d1, the black king on c8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, d.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25. Qe8+ Kb7 26. Rxc7+ Rxc7 27. Qxb5
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e8 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: rook to c7 (+3.3).
- Strong! queen to b5 is the sharp choice (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kb7, then Rxc7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 25. Qe8+ — queen to e8 with check
- Kb7 — king to b7
- 26. Rxc7+ — rook to c7 (capture) with check
- Rxc7 — rook to c7 (capture)
- 27. Qxb5 — queen to b5 (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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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