Pin: king to g2
li-0953KOpens 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 1970 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 f1, rook g6, knight f4, pawn h2 g3.
Black: king g4, rook a3, bishop d2, pawn a5 f5 g5 h5.
5 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 45.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (10 against 12; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g4.
It is White to move on move 45, with 23 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, f.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
45. Kg2 Rxg3+ 46. hxg3
Why it works
- Best move. king to g2 is exactly what the engine plays (+0.6).
- Well found: pawn to g3 (+1.0).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxg3+, then hxg3 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 45. Kg2 — king to g2
- Rxg3+ — rook to g3 (capture) with check
- 46. hxg3 — pawn to g3 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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?
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads