Pin: bishop to c4
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1993 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 e2, rook f2, bishop g2, knight e1, pawn a2 c2 h2 g3 e4.
Black: king d8, queen c1, bishop c5 e6, pawn h5 c6 a7 b7 c7 f7 g7.
10 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (25 against 22; 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 d8.
It is Black to move on move 17, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
17... Bc4 18. Qxc4 Qxe1+ 19. Qf1 Bxf2+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to c4 keeps the pressure (+3.5).
- Well found: queen to e1 (+3.9).
- Strong! bishop to f2 is the sharp choice (+3.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qxc4, then Qxe1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 17… Bc4 — bishop to c4
- 18. Qxc4 — queen to c4 (capture)
- Qxe1+ — queen to e1 (capture) with check
- 19. Qf1 — queen to f1
- Bxf2+ — bishop to f2 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
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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