Chess Blog

6. Fork

A fork is a fairly common chess tactics. This arises when one piece comes to attack two (or more) pieces simultaneously. Since the defender can make only one move, he cannot eliminate both the threats unless he is able to capture the attacking piece! It does not need saying that the fork can gain

• if all the attacked pieces are of higher value than the attacking piece

or

• if one of the attacked pieces, even though of equal or lower value, is lying undefended

In certain cases, the defender can possibly capture the attacking piece, but only at the cost of exposing his other valuable pieces to capture by the opponent.

A fork can be created by anything from a pawn to a queen, but the most common ones are those made by a knight.

The following diagram shows the different types of fork including the so-called family fork where a knight attacks the King, Queen and Rook.

You can see different forks in actual play in example 1 through example 12 discussed earlier.

If you check master games involving forks, you will often find that the fork motif is not always apparent, but exists none the less in a subtle form to bring significant advantage to the attacker. Can you see a knight fork in the following position?

The game went:

In the following position after 37 moves, White won by maneuvering to create not one but three knight forks in three different squares!

The following example shows a knight fork of opponent’s Queen and an empty square (h6) where that same Queen needed to come to defend his King!

In the diagram shown below, the Knight fork is only a measure to force Black to capture it, giving White an opportunity to play some other moves that would ensure a winning advantage.

After White played Ne8+ forking Black King and Queen, Black resigned. To save the Queen, Black would have to capture the Knight with Rook (Rxe8) whereupon White could use a Queen fork with Qxf7+ to capture the Black Rook on next move for an easy win.