Pin: rook to c8 (d8)
li-0Eehfnaming 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 1800 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 f1, queen g3, rook b3, pawn a2 g2 h2 e3 f3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen d2, rook d8, pawn d5 a6 d6 g7 h7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (20 against 19; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 29 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, f.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27... Rc8 28. Qe1 Rc1 29. Qxc1 Qxc1+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to c8 keeps the pressure (+5.0).
- Well found: rook to c1 (+5.0).
- Strong! queen to c1 is the sharp choice (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qe1, then Rc1 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 27… Rc8 — rook to c8
- 28. Qe1 — queen to e1
- Rc1 — rook to c1
- 29. Qxc1 — queen to c1 (capture)
- Qxc1+ — queen to c1 (capture) with check
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).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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