Example Chess Tactics: Pin, Fork and Skewer
Chess Tactics and Strategies
This lesson walks you through some basic chess tactics. These are common strategies used. You will encounter these situations often as you play.
You may notice often the enemy king is involved in a successful execution of a capturing tactic. The king is vulnerable and those pieces attached to him are also vulnerable. This is because the choices of moves are limited once the king is attacked. If both king and another piece are attacked, the other piece must invariably be sacrificed. Be careful about how your king relates to your other pieces.
Let us look at the following chess tactics: pin, fork and skewer.
Pin
In this chess tactic, a piece is under attack and if it escapes, a stronger piece would be captured.
For example, a black bishop attacks a white knight. Moving the knight would lead to the white queen's capture by the same bishop. Since the queen is more valuable than a knight, the latter must be sacrificed.
In this case, the white actually gains if the bishop goes ahead with the capture. Bishops are regarded as slightly more valuable than knights.
If the victim of pinning is the king, then the piece in check must be sacrificed no matter how precious it is.
Fork
A fork occurs when one chessman threatens two enemy pieces at the same time. Since only one piece can be moved at a time, it is not possible to save both pieces simultaneously. If one piece is saved, the other can still be captured in the next move (unless the attacking man is captured).
When one of the assailed chessmen is a king, there is no choice but to move the king to a safe square. The other piece must be sacrificed.
This chess tactic can be overlooked by beginners, especially if the attacking piece is a knight. Where the knight is active or the board is busy, watch out for the fork.
Skewer
This is the term given to a chess tactic where a higher-ranked piece avoids danger only to expose a lower-ranked piece. This can be very costly if both pieces are valuable.
An example of a skewer is a black queen under attack from a white bishop. If she moves out of danger, a pawn will be taken. The choice there is obvious.
But in another scenario, what if the black king is held in check by a white rook and the black queen is behind him? There is no choice but to save the king and sacrifice his queen—a very costly sacrifice indeed!