Fork: knight to e3 (c4·2)
li-00hNbnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1153 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A fork is one piece attacking two targets at once. Look for a knight, pawn or queen move that lands where it hits the king (or a bigger piece) and a second undefended unit on the same turn — the opponent can save only one.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g2, queen e2, rook a1 d1, pawn a2 h2 c3 g3 b4.
Black: king f8, queen f4, knight f2 c4, pawn d5 e6 a7 b7 f7 g7 h7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (24 against 22; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on f8.
It is Black to move on move 30, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: c.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30... Ne3+ 31. Qxe3 Qxe3
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e3 keeps the pressure (+8.0).
- Well found: queen to e3 (+8.1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe3, then Qxe3 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 30… Ne3+ — knight to e3 with check
- 31. Qxe3 — queen to e3 (capture)
- Qxe3 — queen to e3 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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