Pin: knight to e6 (g5)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2270 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 c1, rook c7, knight g5, pawn f2 g2 h2 e3.
Black: king g7, queen a4, rook a7, knight f6, pawn d5 e6 g6 f7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (21 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 g7.
It is White to move on move 35, with 39 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, b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
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
35. Nxe6+ Kg8 36. Rxa7
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e6 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Well found: rook to a7 (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kg8, then Rxa7 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 35. Nxe6+ — knight to e6 (capture) with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 36. Rxa7 — rook to a7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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