Coffee for Dessert

The Chess Zone Guru Course starts in one place. Tactics. Before openings, before endgames, before master games, you learn how pieces attack. Today we take two of them. The pin and the skewer.

They look alike. Two of your opponent’s pieces on one line, and your long-range piece aiming down it. The difference is which piece is in front.

A pin puts the less valuable piece in front. It cannot move without exposing the more valuable piece behind it. If the piece behind is the king, it cannot legally move at all. A pinned piece still sits on the board. It just stops doing its job.

A skewer puts the more valuable piece in front. You attack it, it has to get out of the way, and you take the piece behind it. A pin freezes a piece. A skewer forces one to move.

Bishops, rooks and queens make both. Knights, kings and pawns cannot. They do not attack down a line.

So when you look at a position, look for lines. Two enemy pieces on the same file, rank or diagonal is a question. Which one is in front? Is my piece already on that line, or one move away?

Then flip the board. Your own pieces line up too. Before you move, ask if you just put two of them on one line for your opponent.

That is how the course runs. The pieces, then the tactics, then the plans. Pins and forks first, then skewers and discoveries, then double attacks and overloaded pieces. One idea at a time, until you see it without looking.

I wish you the best of luck!!

The Chess Zone – Coffee For Dessert.