Pin: knight to e6
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2157 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, rook a2 d3, knight d4, pawn f2 g2 h2 c3.
Black: king f8, rook c5 a7, knight b4, pawn e6 b7 f7 g7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (17 against 18; 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 f8.
It is White to move on move 31, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, e.
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
31. Nxe6+ fxe6 32. Rf3+ Ke7 33. Rxa7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e6 keeps the pressure (+3.7).
- Well found: rook to f3 (+3.3).
- Strong! rook to a7 is the sharp choice (+3.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead fxe6, then Rf3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 31. Nxe6+ — knight to e6 (capture) with check
- fxe6 — pawn to e6 (capture)
- 32. Rf3+ — rook to f3 with check
- Ke7 — king to e7
- 33. Rxa7 — rook to a7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
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.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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