A Few Chess Terms
Pinning: Is a very common tactic in chess.It is a situation leading to a dilemma for the opponent so that moving a piece will make a more valuable piece vulnerable. “To Pin” refers to the restriction of the opponent so that free movement of his piece is not possible.Pieces which can move infinitely along horizontal, vertical or diagonal can pin other pieces. A king cannot be pinned,as soon as the king is pinned it will become a check and King should be moved.Bishops, Rooks & Queens can pin opponents pieces whereas a King, Knight, and Pawn can’t make a pin. A Relative pin is a situation where the pinned piece is shielding a piece other than a king but relatively of higher value. An Absolute pin means the pinned piece is shielding a king, so the movement of the pinned piece becomes illegal, as it will result in a check to the king(If movement of a piece leads to check then its illegal move).In the picture the black knight is pinned by a White queen and it is an absolute pin.
Skewering: Is something that almost opposite to pinning. Here the more valuable piece is on attack and thus forcing the opponent to move that piece which in turn will lead to the capture of a relatively less valuable piece.Here also absolute and relative is present.The picture shows an absolute skewer, as the black king is on check it should be moved which will result in losing the queen.
Stalemate:
Is a situation leading to a draw.It happens when its a player’s turn to move and he doesnot have any valid move and his King is not in a check.Usually this happens when there are less number of pieces on the board.Some pieces will be blocked by opponents, some will be on absolute pin.
Fork:
A tactical move which will bring a profit in terms of opponent’s pieces. Fork is a situation when a piece attacks two or more pieces of the opponent simultaneously, thus resulting in a material gain.Any piece can create a fork, Knights are famous in forking moves, while bishops, rooks, queen, pawn and even king can create a fork. A Royal fork means the king and queen are forked which will eventually result in loosing queen in most cases. A Grand fork happens when the fork is made of King, Queen and one or both Rooks.
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