A sliding piece attacks a valuable enemy piece which must move. Moving it exposes a less valuable enemy piece, directly behind it on the same ray, to capture.
Cite this entryChessGrammar (2026). Skewer. In: ChessGrammar: A reference for chess concepts, Tactics grammar, edition v3.0. Entry cg:skewer@1. https://chessgrammar.com/motifs/tactics/skewer
JSON
Start position
the definition and its boundary
Rxa3
The black rook captures on a3 and faces the white queen on c3, with the white pawn on e3 lined up behind it on the same rank. The queen must move to safety. Once it does, the pawn falls too against any defence, so the skewer wins material.
r5r1/5k1p/4q1p1/2p2p2/2n5/P1Q1P3/4R1PP/B4RK1 b - - 2 30Rxa3
Its nearest neighbour is the Pin, the mirror image of the same three-piece line. The three squares and the line are the same. In a Pin, the front piece cannot move or shields the king, and the front piece is the one that stays bound. Which of the two applies depends only on whether the screen outranks the target or is the king. It never depends on which piece is worth more in absolute terms.
The screen queen is replaced by a pawn, equal in value to the target pawn behind it on the same rank. The front and back pieces are worth the same, so the position is not a Skewer and not a Pin.
r5r1/5k1p/4q1p1/2p2p2/2n5/P1P1P3/4R1PP/B4RK1 b - - 2 30the variants
The forms below are grouped by the feature they describe. A feature may have no separate named form. Open a form to read its criteria and see its examples.
Diagonal Skewerbishop skewer
The ray is diagonal.
Skewer with CheckCheck Skewer
The trigger move gives check.
King-Queen Skewer
The screen is the king; the rear piece is the queen.
King-Rook Skewer
The screen is the king; the rear piece is a rook.
Queen-Rook Skewer
The screen is a queen; the rear piece is a rook.
forms the literature names but the taxonomy does not carry as entries of their own
Reciprocal Skewersymmetrical · endgame skewer
Outlined — no formal discriminator published.
the corpus
Loading the corpus…