Pin: queen to f7
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1947 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 f1, queen f3, rook e1, bishop d5, pawn f2 g2 a3 h3 b4.
Black: king g8, queen d7, rook e8, knight c6, pawn b5 a6 d6 h6 b7 f7 g7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (22 against 24; 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 White to move on move 28, with 37 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): c, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
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
28. Qxf7+ Qxf7 29. Rxe8+ Kh7 30. Bxf7
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f7 keeps the pressure (+6.4).
- Well found: rook to e8 (+6.6).
- Strong! bishop to f7 is the sharp choice (+6.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxf7, then Rxe8+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 28. Qxf7+ — queen to f7 (capture) with check
- Qxf7 — queen to f7 (capture)
- 29. Rxe8+ — rook to e8 (capture) with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 30. Bxf7 — bishop to f7 (capture)
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.
Simplification
Trade the heavy pieces and steer into a won endgame.
Simplification is how you convert an advantage: by trading queens and rooks you extinguish the counterplay and steer the game into a won endgame. The rule is simple — the side with extra material trades pieces but keeps pawns. Look for exchanges once the material is already won and your opponent is still rattling threats. The mistake is avoiding the queen trade and letting him muddy the water forever.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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