Pin Puzzles

A pin freezes an enemy piece against something more valuable behind it. In an absolute pin, the piece is stuck in front of its king and literally cannot move. In a relative pin, moving it would lose the queen or a rook — legal, but usually losing.

Pins win material in two main ways. The direct way: capture the pinned piece with something cheaper, because a frozen defender cannot recapture properly. The patient way: pile up. A pinned piece cannot run, so every new attacker counts double — push a pawn at a pinned knight and watch the defense collapse.

Pins also power other tactics. A pinned pawn does not really defend the square it appears to cover, and combinations constantly walk through those phantom defenses. Before you trust a defender, ask whether it is pinned.

Only bishops, rooks and queens can pin — the pieces that move along lines. That makes pins easy to hunt: scan every line from your long-range pieces through an enemy piece toward the king or queen behind it.

Solve the puzzle on this page, taken from a real game, then open the trainer to practice pins at your own level.