Pin: queen to a1
li-0KBOFOpens 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 2206 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 c1, queen d2, rook d1 h1, bishop f2 f3, knight c3, pawn b2 c2 g2 h3 e5.
Black: king g8, queen a2, rook a8 f8, bishop g7, knight f5, pawn c6 g6 a7 b7 e7 h7.
12 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (33 against 31; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 17, with 43 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): d, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
17... Qa1+ 18. Nb1 Bh6 19. Qxh6 Nxh6
Why it works
- Great move! queen to a1 keeps the pressure (+3.1).
- Well found: bishop to h6 (+3.2).
- Strong! knight to h6 is the sharp choice (+2.9).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Nb1, then Bh6 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 17… Qa1+ — queen to a1 with check
- 18. Nb1 — knight to b1
- Bh6 — bishop to h6
- 19. Qxh6 — queen to h6 (capture)
- Nxh6 — knight to h6 (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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads