Pin: king to g7
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The tactical motive
Hanging piece: your opponent left a piece undefended — take it.
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1706 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A hanging piece is one that is attacked and not defended, or defended too few times. Count attackers against defenders on each enemy unit; where attackers win, take it — often with an in-between move or a check to gain the extra tempo.
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 e2, queen c2, rook h1 g7, knight h4, pawn a2 b2 f2 c3 e3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen e6, rook a8 f8, knight c6, pawn f4 d5 a6 h6 b7 c7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 20.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 28 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on e2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 20, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e.
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
20... Kxg7 21. Rg1+ Kf7 22. Qh7+ Ke8
Why it works
- Great move! king to g7 keeps the pressure (+3.0).
- Well found: king to f7 (+3.1).
- Strong! king to e8 is the sharp choice (+3.4).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rg1+, then Kf7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 20… Kxg7 — king to g7 (capture)
- 21. Rg1+ — rook to g1 with check
- Kf7 — king to f7
- 22. Qh7+ — queen to h7 with check
- Ke8 — king to e8
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.
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.
King evacuation
The king walks out of the danger zone on its own feet.
King evacuation: when the shelter collapses, the king walks out of the attack on his own feet — sometimes across half the board. A series of precise king moves carries him out of the firing zone, and the enemy attack dissolves. The signs: no direct defense works, but there is a route over unattacked squares to a quiet corner. Calculate the entire journey in advance — a king stranded halfway usually dies there.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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