We would be remiss if we failed to consider one final possibility for defense: offense. Black finds his knight pinned on the e-file. Crisis is at hand, for White has advanced a pawn from f2 to f3 and threatens to take the knight with it on his next move. Black has no checks that also go after the pinning piece, but remember a different and broader point of our studies: no matter how thoroughly you may seem to be on the defensive, it pays to look at the board through fresh eyes and consider your best offensive move. Here a simple scan of the White king’s lines turns up the kernel of a pin against White’s queen on d4. Black just needs to put an attacker on the dark-squared diagonal those pieces share. He does it not with his queen, of course, but with his bishop, playing it from f8 to c5. He hasn't dissolved the pin against his knight, but he has done better: he has declined to be distracted by it and has created an even stronger pin of his own.