A skewer is a
tactic in
chess, somewhat similar to the
pin. Whereas with a
pin you have a lower-valued
piece standing in the way of an attack on a higher-valued piece, the skewer reverses the pieces' roles: a valuable piece is
attacked, forcing it to move out of the way and thereby expose an attack on a less valuable piece. For example, if a column of the
board contains, from top to bottom, a black
rook, white
king and white
queen, then the king is forced to move out of
check leaving the queen to be
captured by the rook.
An example game containing a skewer:
1. e3 e5
2. f4 d6
3. Nh3 Qh4+
4. Ke2 Bg4+
The black
bishop skewers the white king and will capture white's queen on the next
move.