Pin: pawn to f3
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2080 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 e2, rook a1 f1, bishop c1, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 g2 d3 h3 e6.
Black: king g8, queen h4, rook a8 f8, bishop b6 c8, pawn f4 h5 c6 a7 b7 c7 g7.
14 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (33 against 32; 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 15, with 29 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: d, e.
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
15... f3 16. Qe4 Qg3 17. Qxf3 Rxf3
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to f3 keeps the pressure (+5.2).
- Well found: queen to g3 (+5.5).
- Strong! rook to f3 is the sharp choice (+5.8).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qe4, then Qg3 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 15… f3 — pawn to f3
- 16. Qe4 — queen to e4
- Qg3 — queen to g3
- 17. Qxf3 — queen to f3 (capture)
- Rxf3 — rook to f3 (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.
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?
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 015
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