Undermining

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Undermining is a chess tactic where an opponent guard, defending an attacked piece, is captured. While the removed guard itself is usually not en prise and the attacker even has a negative static exchange evaluation, the point is that there is no recapture available to perpetuate the guards defensive obligations, and leaving a former attacked but guarded piece en prise, with a final net gain for the attacker. Those pattern may be considered in quiescence search to encourage capturing pawns and pieces with otherwise negative SEE …

Counter Sample

If the undermined piece has a Zwischenzug, things are more complicated. Here quiescence has to deal with checks below the horizon, to become aware undermining does not work here …