If you have understood the concepts of Pin as a chess tactic, discussed in the previous lesson in this series, the ideas of Skewer will be clear to you even though the working and threats posed are slightly different.
5. Skewer
The structure of a Skewer is similar to that of a Pin, but here the interposing piece has higher value than the target and there is no bind on its movement. It is therefore natural for the defender to move the interposing piece away from the line of attack. But this exposes the target to capture by the attacking piece, which is basically the idea of this chess tactics. This may be considered as a reverse pin and as in a pin, the attacking piece has to be Queen, Rook, or Bishop. In the following diagram, the White Bishop attacks the Black Rook behind the Queen.
If the interposing piece happens to be the King which is obviously under check, the resulting skewer is sometimes referred as “through check”. The following diagram shows an example where Black is going to lose his Rook.
Because of the pressure on the valuable interposing piece, it is hardly possible for the defender to save the target piece in a skewer – unless the interposing piece can move to a position to create a check or an equally forcing thrust against the attacking player.
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[...] the next lesson, we discuss a variation on Pin known as Skewer, a chess tactic that poses threats in a slightly [...]