The fork: one move, two threats
A fork attacks two pieces with a single move, and your opponent can only save one of them. It is one of the most frequent tactics in the Lichess puzzle database, and one of the easiest to learn to see.
What a fork is
A fork is a move that attacks two targets at once: two pieces, or the king and a piece. Your opponent has one move to answer, so one of the two falls. Every piece can fork, but the knight is the champion: it jumps, it cannot be blocked, and its attack does not draw a line on the board, so it is easy to miss.
In the Lichess puzzle database (6.2 million puzzles taken from real games), the fork comes up in 12.8% of the puzzles, more than twice as often as the pin: after mate in one and mate in two, it is the most common tactic. It is also one of the ten themes of 300 Chess Puzzles, with thirty forks from about 600 to 1800 Elo. They all have one thing in common: before the fork, there were signals.
Three signals that announce a fork
- Two loose pieces, or a king and a piece, that one of your pieces can reach together.
- A check that also attacks something. Your opponent must answer the check first, so the second attack lands.
- For a knight: king and queen on squares of the same colour, a knight’s jump away from the same square.
The third signal is worth learning by heart. A knight always lands on a square of the other colour, so it can only attack two pieces at once if they stand on squares of the same colour. When you see the enemy king and queen both on dark squares, or both on light squares, look for the knight jump that touches them both.
The knight fork, with check
The black knight on g3 can reach e2, and from e2 it attacks both g1 and c3. 1…Ne2+ checks the king and attacks the rook at the same time. The king has to step aside, for example 2.Kf2, and 2…Nxc3 wins the rook.
The check is what makes it work. Without it, White would simply move the rook away. With it, White has no time: the first threat must be answered, and the second one is free.
Here the tempting move is 1…Qxf3+, but after 2.Kxf3 the queens are off and White, with a rook against a knight, is winning. The fork wins the queen instead: 1…Nh4+ checks the king on g2 and attacks the queen on f3. After 2.Kg3, 2…Nxf3 takes the queen, and Black has won it for a knight.
Before you take a protected piece, ask whether a check could win it for free. A fork with check is often the cleaner way.
The pawn fork
Pawns fork too, and that hurts: a pawn is worth less than anything it attacks. A classic from the London System: after 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3 Bf5 4.c3 e6 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nd2, Black takes the knight with 7…Nxe5? and White takes back with the pawn, 8.dxe5.
The pawn on e5 attacks the bishop and the knight at once, and taking it with the bishop does not help, because the bishop on f4 guards e5. One of the two pieces falls, and White wins a piece for a pawn. This trap is one of the ten in The London System in Twelve Lessons, and you will find it with two others in our article on three London System traps.
The queen fork
The queen attacks in eight directions at once, so it often forks with a check: the king on one line, a loose piece on another. That piece must have no defender, because the queen is worth more than anything it attacks.
A classic of the Scotch Gambit shows how such a fork is set up. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.c3 dxc3?, 6.Bxf7+! Kxf7 draws the king to f7, and 7.Qd5+ checks it while attacking the bishop on c5, which nothing defends. After 7…Kf8 8.Qxc5+, White has won the piece back. Our article on Scotch Game traps goes through this trap move by move.
How to train your eye
Seeing forks is a matter of repetition. Before each move, list the loose pieces on the board, yours and your opponent’s, and look for a square that attacks two of them. Then solve a few forks every day, on paper, writing down the whole line before you check the answer: you learn to find the square first, then to make sure your opponent has no better reply. When you get one wrong, find the signal you missed: two loose pieces, a check, or a king and queen on squares of the same colour.
Our article on how many puzzles to solve a day gives a simple routine, and The Knight’s Notebook brings you sixty puzzles a month at your level, in a PDF to print. For the tactics that work along a line, read our article on pins and skewers.