Start with an assessment of Black’s offensive resources. He has a queen not far from White’s king; a rook on the e-file, ready to jump to the first rank; and a bishop on the long diagonal. The idea should be clear enough: if the bishop were able to pin the pawn on g2, Black’s queen could take advantage by moving to h3, then g2, with a mating attack. How to arrange the pin? Hound the king with the rook, and be ready to sacrifice it. Black plays 1. …Re1+, 2. Kh2, Rh1+, 3. KxR and White’s king has been drawn into the corner. Now Black takes advantage by putting his queen onto the square that the newly pinned pawn used to protect: Qh3+, and the king’s only flight square is g1. Black mates from here with the simple Qxg2, with the queen again taking protection from the same bishop whose pin allowed it to penetrate White's position.

The first lesson of the position lies in Black's use of his rook. He sees his own bishop on the long diagonal, and wants to get White's king onto h1 so the g2 pawn will be pinned and allow Qh3+. His first available check—Re1—doesn’t get this done, because the king goes to h2. Then comes the key move: Rh1, planting the rook on the square where Black wants White’s king to go, and forcing it to capture there. (This idea sometimes is known as a decoy; we will examine it in more detail elsewhere.) Notice that White could not play Nf1 in reply to Black’s initial Re1+, because then Black mates with Qxg2. Likewise, White could reply to Black’s Rh1 with NxR instead of KxR. But then Black still has Qxg2#.