Forks and Pins and Skewers

Hey guys.....This is @IAMDAGOAT123456780 and this is my first blog!! Today Im gonna be talking about Forks, Pins, and Skewers

WHAT ARE FORKS AND PINS AND SKEWERS?

• All are types of Tactics and that usually help u gain material or even out with your opponents
• They are most common (Through my experience) during the middle game
• And can  involve the opponents king and put a lot of pressure on it

Now lets SPECIFICALLY talk about them;

FORK

Forks are when a minor piece or a piece of less value is attacking 2 other pieces of greater value....at the same time. Obviously the only way to stop this attack from the other side is by capturing the piece that is using the tactic.......Unless that is the case The opponent has unfortunately lost one of his pieces that was caught up in the fork......

As you can see, the knight on f5 is attacking both the Queen and the Rook so black will most likely save his queen as it is worth more than the rook but this is a fork as both a queen and rook are both have more value than the knight.....

Forks can also happen involving the king.......Usually in this case, it is the knight that is committing this check/fork but it also happens with other pieces as well.......This is a rather common scenario you will see during middle games.......

In this case...white is checking black's king, and at the same time attacking the rook and since the king HAS to move since he is in check White can simply win the rook.....Now lets move on too Pins

PINS

Pins are when a piece of lesser value is attacking a piece that, when removed, will allow the attacker to take a piece that the other piece was guarding.....This piece that got captured is usually of high value eg; rook/queen.....so lets say that a bishop is attacking a knight which is diagonal to the queen.....then if the knight is removed then the bishop can simply take the queen which can be costly....Here is an example of what im saying

This is an example of what I was talking about how the knight is pinned by the bishop to the queen

hopefully this helps u understand the scenario

Just like forks, pins can involve the king as well....in fact there is an opening with this called the Ruy Lopez opening which is 1.e4, e5 2.nf3, nc6 3.bb5 this is the Ruy Lopez opening and the knight is pinned by the bishop.....the knight on c6 cant move bcuz then the bishop would be checking the king, making this an illegal move. Here is an example of the Ruy Lopez opening

As u can see, if the knight on c6 moves, the bishop is checking the king making this an illegal move........And now lets move on to Skewers

SKEWERS

Skewers are when there is a piece of greater value than the attacker that is under direct attack that when moved, will lead to a capture to piece behind......Just like pins, the attacker is bound to get a major piece no matter what or a piece of a higher value.....Its is in fact so similar to a pin that is called the "reverse pin" sometimes......And through my experience usually occur more in endgames than in middle games...Here is an example;

As u can see, the bishop is attacking the queen and behind is the rook and this make the situation a skewer........But the difference between the skewer and a pin is that piece of more greater value is in the front, unlike a pin where its behind

Just like Forks and pins (Hope Im not being repetitive ) skewers can also involve with the king as well......In this scenario, the king is being checked and behind the king is a major (usually its a major piece) piece.....in this case the king has to move and now all the attacker has to do is capture the piece...... Here is an example...

As u can see, the king is under check and HAS to move and behind it is the queen which after king has moved (since he's under check) the rook can just take the queen....so is, white is up  a lot and is in a winning situation.......

Well.. thats it guys...it took me  a while to complete this but I hope you liked plz post a note down if I missed anything, anything to add, or just liked it....and if u can, plz share this with ur friends and hoped this definitely helped as a refresher if u already know this stuff or learned it for the first time...and since its my first blog im not expecting it to be great or anything but to just get the idea across

Thank you, @IAMDAGOAT123456789