Pin: queen to d7 (e6)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2205 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 h2, queen e6, bishop e5, pawn b2 g2 h3 f4.
Black: king h7, queen e2, bishop g7, pawn d2 h5 g6 a7.
7 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 41.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 16 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h2, the black king on h7.
It is White to move on move 41, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, d.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
41. Qd7 Qxe5 42. fxe5
Why it works
- Great move! queen to d7 keeps the pressure (+6.0).
- Well found: pawn to e5 (+6.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe5, then fxe5 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 41. Qd7 — queen to d7
- Qxe5 — queen to e5 (capture)
- 42. fxe5 — pawn to e5 (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.
Queen endgame
Queens on an open board — precision above all.
Queen endgames are treacherous: the queen reaches everywhere, and one slip turns a win into perpetual check. The signs are few pawns, exposed kings, and checks hanging in the air. Tuck your king away early, and use your own checks to bring the queen closer or push your passer with tempo. The typical mistake is grabbing pawns while leaving your king exposed to endless checks.
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?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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