Academy | Tactics | Targets: Higher-valued Pieces
Higher-valued pieces, particularly the queen and rooks, can be threatened by any piece (or pawn) that has a lower value. With regard to targets, high-valued pieces are similar to hanging pieces in the sense that they are quite vulnerable to threats.
Diagram above: Even though black’s rook on d4 is defended by the pawn on c5, it’s still a target for white’s knight (due to it’s relatively higher value). White can use the awkward position of black’s rook to gain an important tempo.
Diagram above: White’s move, 1.Nf5! attacks the rook on d4. (Even though the rook is defended by the pawn on c5, black doesn’t want to trade the higher-valued rook for the knight.) However, white wins an important tempo for their knight because on the next move they can play 2.Ne7+, forking the black king (and rook on c8). Either way, black will lose some material.
You can now see that the one down-side of high-valued pieces is that they are vulnerable to threats from lower-valued pieces.