The pin and the skewer, explained
Two tactics that look identical on the board and work in opposite directions. Once you can tell them apart, you start seeing both everywhere.
A pin and a skewer are the same geometry pointed two different ways. Both involve a line piece, a rook, bishop or queen, attacking two enemy pieces that sit on the same line. The difference is which of the two is worth more.
The pin
In a pin, the less valuable piece is in front, and it cannot move because something more valuable sits behind it.
A bishop on g5 attacking a knight on f6, with the black queen on d8 behind it, pins that knight. If the knight moves, the queen is captured. So the knight has to stand there and take it.
The critical insight for beginners is that a pinned piece is not really defending anything. It looks like a defender and behaves like a spectator. If that knight on f6 was the only thing guarding a square, that square is now effectively undefended, and you can often attack it a second time and win it outright.
A pin against the king is absolute: the piece in front is not merely unwise to move, it is illegal to move.
The skewer
A skewer is a pin in reverse. The more valuable piece is in front, gets attacked, has to move, and whatever was hiding behind it is captured.
Rook on a1, black king on a8, black rook on a5. The rook checks along the file, the king must step aside, and the rook behind it falls.
Skewers are rarer than pins but usually more decisive, because they win material immediately rather than creating a weakness to exploit later.
Telling them apart
A simple test: ask which piece you would rather capture.
- If the piece you want is behind, it is a pin. You are freezing the front piece to get at the back one later.
- If the piece you want is behind and you get it right now because the front one has to move, it is a skewer.
Children mix these up constantly, and it does not matter much what they call them. What matters is noticing that two enemy pieces are sitting on the same line.
How to make them happen
Neither tactic usually appears by accident. Strong players create them.
- Watch for pieces lining up. Any time an enemy king, queen or rook shares a rank, file or diagonal with another of their pieces, there is a tactic to look for.
- Attack a pinned piece again. A pinned knight cannot run. Hit it with a pawn and it is simply lost.
- Force the line. A check that drives a king onto the same diagonal as its own queen creates a skewer that was not there a move earlier.
The defensive half
The same knowledge works in reverse. If your own pieces are lining up on a file with your king, fix it before someone makes you. Moving the king off the line, or putting a pawn between, costs a move. Losing a rook costs the game.
Pins, forks and skewers are the core tactics in our Beginner course, and they carry a player a long way before anything more advanced is needed.