Pin: bishop to e7
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1976 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 c1, queen d2, rook g1 h1, bishop g5, knight a2, pawn b2 c2 f2 a3 d3 f3 e4 h4.
Black: king g8, queen d8, rook a8 f8, bishop e7, knight h5, pawn b5 c5 e5 a6 d6 f7 g7 h7.
14 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 33 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on c1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 16, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: g.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
16. Bxe7 Qxe7 17. Qh6 f5 18. Qxh5
Why it works
- Brilliant! The bishop on e7 is a sacrifice that works — you stand better (+2.7).
- Well found: queen to h6 (+2.9).
- Strong! queen to h5 is the sharp choice (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qxe7, then Qh6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 16. Bxe7 — bishop to e7 (capture)
- Qxe7 — queen to e7 (capture)
- 17. Qh6 — queen to h6
- f5 — pawn to f5
- 18. Qxh5 — queen to h5 (capture)
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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