Figure 4.5.5.4[White to move]

There are a couple of alignments in Black’s camp. Rather than sort out each one, probably the more efficient thing is to see what emerges from forcing sequences you can set in motion. You have no checks, but there are two captures to consider: each White knight can take a pawn and then be recaptured. In reply to Nxe5, Black plays d6xN and nothing much has changed. But in reply to Nxb5 Black plays QxN. His queen would be lined up with its knight on d7—which is loose. Now White can skewer them with his light-squared bishop by playing it to a4, where it retains protection from the queen back on d1. Critically, Black’s queen has no flight square from which it can continue to guard the knight. White takes the knight next move, and he nets a pawn with the sequence.

Skewers of the king are everyone’s favorite type, but often the king spends much of a game on the back rank where it is hard to skewer it to anything. The queen, though, does venture into the middle of the board earlier in the game, putting lots of its own pieces behind it where you can make targets out of them. This position is an example. The capture Nxb5 goaded the queen into the middle of the board, and in front of the Black knight on d7.