Pin: queen to b5
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1592 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 g1, queen d1, rook c1 f3, bishop e2, knight b5, pawn h2 b3 g3 c4 e4 f5.
Black: king g8, queen b4, rook c7 c8, bishop e7 f7, pawn e5 d6 f6 g7 h7.
12 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (31 against 30; 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 Black to move on move 26, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26... Qxb5 27. cxb5 Rxc1 28. Qxc1 Rxc1+
Why it works
- Great move! queen to b5 keeps the pressure (+3.9).
- Well found: rook to c1 (+4.0).
- Strong! rook to c1 is the sharp choice (+3.9).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead cxb5, then Rxc1 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 26… Qxb5 — queen to b5 (capture)
- 27. cxb5 — pawn to b5 (capture)
- Rxc1 — rook to c1 (capture)
- 28. Qxc1 — queen to c1 (capture)
- Rxc1+ — rook to c1 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Clearance
Clear your own piece out of the way — with tempo — for the decisive blow.
Clearance is about your own piece standing in the way of the decisive blow — so you move it aside, or even throw it away. The key is to clear with tempo: jump off with a check, a capture or a threat, giving the opponent no time to regroup. The telltale sign: you see a crushing queen or rook move, but one of your own pieces blocks the line or occupies the square. Do not cling to it — a clearance sacrifice usually costs less than a missed attack.
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.
Simplification
Trade the heavy pieces and steer into a won endgame.
Simplification is how you convert an advantage: by trading queens and rooks you extinguish the counterplay and steer the game into a won endgame. The rule is simple — the side with extra material trades pieces but keeps pawns. Look for exchanges once the material is already won and your opponent is still rattling threats. The mistake is avoiding the queen trade and letting him muddy the water forever.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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