Pin: rook to f2 (f1)
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The tactical motive
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 2216 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 h1, queen e6, rook d1 f1, pawn b2 g2 a3 h3 e5.
Black: king g8, queen f2, rook f7 d8, bishop b4, pawn e3 d5 a6 g6 b7 h7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (24 against 28; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 27, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, f — 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
27. Rxf2 exf2 28. axb4 Kf8 29. Rf1
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f2 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: pawn to b4 (+3.8).
- Strong! rook to f1 is the sharp choice (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead exf2, then axb4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 27. Rxf2 — rook to f2 (capture)
- exf2 — pawn to f2 (capture)
- 28. axb4 — pawn to b4 (capture)
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 29. Rf1 — rook to f1
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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