The Skewer Attack Tactic in Chess
Known as one of the highly effective chess tactics, the skewer can put the opponents in problematic situations in no time. This tactic capitalizes on a situation wherein two chess pieces are aligned in a single straight path. This leaves the opposing players with very little choice but to sacrifice one of the threatened pieces. Using this move can give players much control of a game as well as enough opportunity to dictate the tempo.
A skewer shares some undeniable similarities with the pinning chess tactic. While a pin involves a much lower piece being placed in front of the attacked pieces, a skewer involves a couple of attacked pieces wherein the higher valued piece can be found in front of a lower one. This leaves opponents with no choice but to remove the higher valued piece out of harms way. This makes the lower piece susceptible to being captured.
Among all the popular chess tactics, the skewer attack is one of the easiest to execute. Players would just have to wait for their opponents to commit some careless and unnecessary mistakes such as putting a couple of more chess pieces in a single straight path. Bishops, rooks, and queens are the only major entities in chess that can perform this tactic. Kings, knights, and pawns lack the ability and versatility to perform such move.
The skewer move is sometimes referred to as 'thrust' in the game of chess. Others even call it the 'reverse pin' due to its obvious similarities with the pinning tactic. With a higher valued chess piece at the forefront of the situation, the opposing players are obliged to move it out of the way to preserve that very important piece in their strategy. However, they leave the lower valued chess pieces susceptible to being captured within the process.
Players are guaranteed to gain something valuable in return by using the ever reliable skewer attack tactic. When a queen and a knight is placed at a skewer situation by a supported rook, the victim of this tactic does not have any choice but to move the queen in harms way to avoid losing the extremely vital piece. The attacker would then have to eat the knight to gain a serious lead and advantage.
Just like the pinning chess tactic, the skewer attack also has different types which depend on the degree of damage that they can inflict and the value of chess pieces that are being skewered within the process. Both the relative skewer and the absolute skewer are guaranteed to cause some serious problems to ponder for the opposing players. Based on the possible problems that such tactic can bring, the skewer attack is definitely a helpful move in the game of chess.
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