Just as was true when we looked at absolute pins, relative pins can be exploited in two general ways: by capturing the paralyzed piece through an accumulation of force against it, or by taking something the paralyzed piece is supposed to protect. We turn now to the latter theme, and in particular the use of relative pins against pawns (a pattern not yet considered) to enable their protectorates to be taken.

In the leftward example, follow the lines of attack out from each of your pieces and you see that the White rook attacks a pawn and a rook behind it on the c-file. Since the Black rook is loose, the pawn in front of it is pinned; and since the pawn is pinned, the piece it is supposed to protect is loose as well. Thus the target of operations is Black’s knight on b5, which White takes with NxN.