Skewer (chess)
chess tactic in which one attacks a valuable piece, which the opponent is compelled to move at the cost of losing a less valuable piece behind it
In chess, a skewer is an attack upon two pieces in a line and is similar but opposite to a pin; the difference is that in a skewer, the more valuable piece is the one under direct attack and the less valuable piece is behind it. The opponent is compelled to move the more valuable piece to avoid its capture, thereby exposing the less valuable piece which can then be captured (see chess piece relative value). Only riders (i.e., bishops, rooks, and queens) can skewer; kings, knights, and pawns cannot.
Details
Compared to the pin, a passive action with only an implied threat, the skewer is a direct attack upon the more valuable piece, making it generally a much more powerful and effective tactic. The victim of a skewer often cannot avoid losing material; the only question is which material will be lost. The skewer occurs less often than the pin in actual play. When it does occur, however, it is often decisive.
In this diagram, with White to move, the white king and queen are skewered by the black bishop. The rules of chess compel White to get out of check (if possible). After White chooses one of the handful of legal king moves available, Black will capture the white queen.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Skewer (chess)” is chess tactic in which one attacks a valuable piece, which the opponent is compelled to move at the cost of losing a less valuable piece behind it. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Skewer, chess and tactic, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Skewer (chess)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.