Pin: knight to f4 (h3)
li-0D06ynaming tag (square·N)Opens 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 2330 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 g3, rook a1 f1, bishop g5, knight b1 h3, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 g2 h2 e4.
Black: king g8, queen g6, rook a8 f8, bishop c5 c8, knight c4, pawn d4 d6 a7 b7 c7 f7 g7 h7.
14 white and 15 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 12.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (35 against 36; 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 12, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: d.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
12. Nf4 Qxe4 13. Bf6 Qg6 14. Nxg6
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f4 keeps the pressure (+3.4).
- Well found: bishop to f6 (+3.5).
- Strong! knight to g6 is the sharp choice (+3.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe4, then Bf6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 12. Nf4 — knight to f4
- Qxe4 — queen to e4 (capture)
- 13. Bf6 — bishop to f6
- Qg6 — queen to g6
- 14. Nxg6 — knight to g6 (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?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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