Skewer: knight to a7
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The tactical motive
Skewer: a valuable piece is forced to move, exposing the one behind it.
Difficulty 1198 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A skewer is a pin reversed — the valuable piece stands in front and, when it moves, the piece behind falls. Line your rook, bishop or queen up against the king or queen and win whatever is hiding behind it.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g2, queen e5, rook a1 f1, knight b5, pawn h2 g3 a4 f4.
Black: king c8, queen d7, rook f5 g8, bishop c5, pawn c4 d5 b6 e6 b7 h7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (26 against 28; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on c8.
It is White to move on move 32, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: b, c, d, e.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
32. Na7+ Kd8 33. Qb8+ Ke7 34. Qxg8
Why it works
- Great move! knight to a7 keeps the pressure (+4.0).
- Well found: queen to b8 (+4.3).
- Strong! queen to g8 is the sharp choice (+4.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kd8, then Qb8+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 32. Na7+ — knight to a7 with check
- Kd8 — king to d8
- 33. Qb8+ — queen to b8 with check
- Ke7 — king to e7
- 34. Qxg8 — queen to g8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Skewer
A line attack forces the valuable piece to move, exposing the one behind it.
A skewer is a pin turned inside out: the valuable piece stands in front and something cheaper hides behind it. The big piece must step aside, and you collect the one that was sheltering in its shadow. Scan for the enemy king or queen sharing a file, rank or diagonal with another enemy piece. The deadliest version comes with check — the king moves, the rook behind it dies.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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