Chess Strategies – Pins and Skewers
Pins and skewers are not very difficult to understand. Basically, you make a pin when you attack two of your opponent’s pieces with one of yours. For e.g. If you are playing white, and according to this video, if you see the black queen placed in f2 which is straight in line with the black king in f8 and you have your white rooks in a1 and d1. Your motive is to attack the black king. You pin the black queen by moving your rook from d1 to f1, which means it’s placed right behind the black queen. This puts the black queen in a tight situation as your opponent will not be able to wipe out your rook in f1 as it is being covered by the second rook in a1. This is a pin.
A skewer is a move in which you attack two pieces in the same line which is similar to a pin but, you first focus on removing the most valuable piece so it gets easy to capture the one which is less important.
You will see the illustration in the following video and hopefully you will understand better. Most of us happen to make pins and skewers while playing chess unconsciously too at times. But in this video you will learn how to move a pin and skewer. Watch the video and then bring out your favorite chess set and give it a try!
