Pin: rook to e6
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2008 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 g1, queen c3, rook e1 g4, knight f3, pawn b2 f2 g2 b3 h4.
Black: king h8, queen f6, rook d8 f8, bishop b6, knight c6, pawn a7 b7 c7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (27 against 28; 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 h8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 47 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, c.
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
25. Re6 Rd6 26. Rxf6
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e6 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Well found: rook to f6 (+5.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rd6, then Rxf6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 25. Re6 — rook to e6
- Rd6 — rook to d6
- 26. Rxf6 — rook to f6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Rook fork
The rook attacks two targets along rank and file at the same time.
A rook fork attacks two targets from one square — one along the file, the other along the rank. Look for enemy pieces standing at a right angle to each other, both visible from a single safe square. This is bread and butter in endgames, where a rook check picks up loose pieces and pawns along the way. Test every rook check you have: does it also hit something valuable on the other line?
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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