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Pinning: Boy, These Tactics Are Cool so Far

Welcome to the second installment in the tactics tutorial in the chess tutorial. In this section we'll feature pins, probably one of the most common tactics that you'll see in chess, however, it's all in how you exploit these pins to whether you really understand them. Also, this installment will feature increasingly harder tests and examples to help you grow accustomed to seeing positions that may appear in games. Just stick with me and I'll guide you through it, then we'll send you on your way to some interesting (and difficult!) tests.

Ummm, What's a Pin?

A pin is a tactic, as you may have already guessed, in which you attack a piece, which indirectly attacks a piece behind it. In other words, if the piece that is being attacked moves, the piece behind it will be under capture. It should be noted that a pin is only valuable if the piece being indirectly attacked is more valuable than the piece attacking. An example should clarify things:

In the above diagram, the knight is pinned to the queen by the bishop, meaning that if the knight moves, black can kiss his queen goodbye which he most certainly does not want to do!

Two Types of Pins

• Relative
  • These types of pins are ones which the piece that is pinned can move but it might cost him material
  • Don't EVER think that because a piece is pinned it can't move, because sometimes it will move, to your great disapointment when it costs you the game.
• Absolute
  • These are pins against the king, meaing it cannot move. The piece is absolutely stuck where it is, bet you can now guess where the name came from.
  • These pins you can be sure the piece isn't going to move because it can't.
  • These are the most powerful type of pin, try to exploit them at every opportunity.

If you said relative pin, you're absolutely right, only pins agisnt the king are absolute, their movement would cost the king and game which is illegal, a big no-no.

How To Exploit a Pinned Piece

Now, the key to exploiting a pin. Take a look at the diagram below, can you see the winning move?

Much more complicated than a few examples that we've looked at, but nothing we can't handle. Let's take a look at the position and note a few things. First, we'll notice that the black queen is in an absolute pin to the king, a sure sign to look fora way to exploit it. Second, we'll note that 1. Qxd5 Rxd5 just trades the queens, but we want to do more with the pin we have. The black queen is attacked once and defended once, how can we add more power to the attack on the pinned piece? Well, since we know that the queen cannot move, period, 1. Rd1 is safe, which is actually the correct move.

But wait you ask, why can't black just take the queen? Then it's a trade and black can then take off white's rook and he'll be in trouble! Glad you asked, who said that we have to take the queen back right away? After 1. ... Qxc4 2. Rxd8+! K Moves 3. bxc4, white will be up an entire rook.

Whew! A little tougher example than what we've been looking at. Hope you understood it all! Now, onto some tests to test and practise your new found skills. Good luck!

WHITE: Cone, J
BLACK: "warval"
DATE: 5.23.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 27. ... e4

WHITE: Cone, J
BLACK: Unknown
DATE: 11.16.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 23. ... Kf8

WHITE: Arhipkin
BLACK: Prodanov
DATE: Unknown
EVENT: Unknown
LAST MOVE: Unknown
White to move.
An example from an actual GM game. Don't expect this one to be easy!

White to move.

Time to separate the mice from the men!

This concludes this portion of the tutorial, continue on to the third section in the tactics tutorial, skewers, interesting stuff! You're well on your way to becoming a chessmaster already, practice, practice practice, and you'll be there in no time.

lucky individuals have learned how to play better chess since this page hit the web on 06/28/97.