Pins on the King. What Is a Pin in Chess? a Pin Is an Attack We Use with Our Long Range Pieces, Our Bishops, Rook and Queens, to Hold an Enemy Chess Piece in Place

Pins on the King. What is a pin in chess? A pin is an attack we use with our long range pieces, our bishops, rook and queens, to hold an enemy chess piece in place. Let's look at a few examples.

In this first example white has a pin on the black Knight using the c3 Bishop. Although the Knight wants to move off of the e5 square the Knight cannot move because it is pinned to the black King. If the black Knight moves the black King will be in check so the black Knight must stay on e5.

In the second example white has pin on the black Queen using the g1 Rook. Black doesn't want to trade their Queen for a white Rook, but the Queen cannot move off of the g-file because then the black King will be seen by the white Rook.

In the third example white has a pin on the black Rook using the h3 Queen. The black Rook cannot leave the f5 square because if black were to move their f5 Rook they'd expose their King – remember – we never let the enemy see our King! So how do we go about removing a pin if we can't capture the piece that is making the pin?

The first thing we can do is BLOCK THE PIN by moving a piece between the attacking piece and the pinned piece. If the above example if black plays Pawn to d5 the black f7 Rook is no longer pinned to the King and can move on the next turn.

Here again black can BLOCK THE PIN by moving their Knight to e6.

Lastly, if we can't capture the piece creating the pin we can BREAK THE PIN by placing a piece between the piece that is being attacked and the King. In the above example we could play either Bd7 or Nd7. This will allow the c6 Knight to move on the next turn. What is the advantage of a pin?

We can use pins so less powerful pieces can capture more powerful ones.

In this example white plays Bf4 pinning the black Rook to the black King. There is nothing black can do to save their Rook so we will win a Rook for the cost of nothing! That sounds like a pretty good trade.

Here again white will still play Bf4. After white plays Bf4 black may play Pawn to d6 protecting the black Rook SEPARATING THE PIN. We will still want to take the black Rook even if it costs us a Bishop because the Rook has more power than a Bishop.

In this last example the Queen already has a pin on the e6 black Rook but doesn't want to capture the black e6 Rook with a Queen because on black's turn they will use the e8 Rook to capture the Queen. Instead white will play Pawn f5 to EXPLOIT THE PIN and attack the e6 Rook with a lower ranked Pawn. Pins not only let us capture enemy pieces, they also give our pieces move free squares to move to so we can perform captures, forks and checkmates.

It might seem like black's Queen is protected by the c7 Knight and that if white plays Qb5 white and black will be trading Queens, but this isn't the case! After white plays Qb5 black CANNOT capture with the c7 Knight because the white g3 Bishop is creating a pin on the c7 Knight. This pin lets us get a Queen for free!

Here the black g7 Pawn is pinned to the black King. It doesn't seem like a big deal – the white g1 Rook is worth more than the black Pawn so we aren't going to capture this black Pawn, but what about white playing Nf6? Devastating! Because the black g7 Pawn can't capture the white Knight once it moves to f6 the white Knight creates a check and royal fork on the black Queen and King. Ouch!

In this last example white gets a checkmate playing Qg5. The black f6 Pawn and black Bishop cannot capture the white Queen because of pins created by the white Rooks. The black Knight also cannot capture the white Queen because the Knight is pinned by the white c8 Bishop. There are a few special types of pins we should be sure to discuss. First is a hidden pin. With a hidden piece the piece we move doesn't create the pin – instead the long range piece that has its vision expanded creates the pin. This is best seen with an example.

White does not have a pin After playing Nf6 the on the chess board. white g1 Rook is pinning the black g7 Pawn to the black King – a hidden pin.

Another type of special pin is the double pin. A double pin is created when we move a piece creating a hidden pin as well a pin against a piece besides the king. In the example below we move the white Bishop to e4. This creates 2 pins on one piece. The black Knight is pinned to both the black Queen and the black King.

There are no pins on the The white d1 Rook is After black has protected chessboard. We will pinning the black Knight their Knight with e6 white move the d3 Bishop to e4 to the King. The white uses the tempo from to create a hidden pin. Bishop is pinning the having a double pin and black Knight to the attacks the Knight with Queen. c4.

The reason this position is so interesting is black can BREAK THE PIN on the King playing Rd7, but because of the second pin on the Queen white can now play c4 and exploit the the pin on the Queen. Double pins, much like double check, can be used to gain tempo. Here is another example of a hidden pin. We should note the black d6 Knight is already pinned to the black Queen. This let's us put our white Bishop on c4 to pin the black Knight on d5. We thus use a hidden pin to create a multi-pin scenario. Diagram 1

The black Knight is When white plays Bc4 pinned to the black Queen. pinning the black Knight to the Black King we have multiple pins.

Here is another example of a multi-pin scenario. We create the hidden pin by playing Rook d1 pinning the black c6 Rook to the black Queen and the black f7 Rook to the black King.

There are no pins on the After Rd1 we have a board. multiple pin scenario.

Now there are 3 Queen mistakes black could make in diagram 1 above. What would white play after black plays Qf7, Qc6 or Qc5?

White to move White to move White to move In summary: Pins are useful to freeze a piece on the chessboard. A pinned piece cannot move because moving it will put the King in check or expose a valuable piece like the Queen to an attack.

When a piece is pinned we can exploit this pin by attacking this pinned piece with a lower ranked piece like a pawn to get the advantage in a trade. We can also exploit this pinned piece by creating checks and pins we would not have been able to create before. Remember how we used our knight in the below example to create that royal fork on the King and the Queen?

Also, our hidden double pins and hidden multi-pins are great ways of gaining tempo to capture an enemy piece. These two examples we have shown above are perfect demonstrations.

Create a hidden pin. Create a multi-pin. Lastly, remember if you can't capture the piece that is making the pin you can either BLOCK THE PIN OR BREAK THE PIN

Black BLOCKS THE PIN Black BREAKS THE PIN playing d5. playing Bd7.