The power of cross-pins

I decided to write a post about cross-pins because quite a few of my students said that they never heard about the idea before our lessons. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun: while I was collecting material for this post, I discovered three old posts about cross-pins on chess.com. (You can read them here, here, and here.)

Still, as these posts are quite old, and it is a bit unlikely that people stumble upon them, I think it is time to bring up the subject again. 

So, what is a cross-pin?

In my definition, a cross-pin occurs when a piece is pinned from two different directions, and the pins form an X or a + sign, like on the diagrams below:

A cross-pin is a powerful tactical weapon, but it might be difficult to spot if you are not too familiar with the motif. So let's have a bit of practice to make sure you never miss them.  

And finally, two studies where the solution is based on the idea of cross-pins:

I hope you enjoyed the post. If you are looking for quality coaching to improve your game, I am currently accepting new students.

Feel free to send me a private message here or on hogata11@gmail.com.