Fork: knight to f1 (h2)
li-02Bcdnaming 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 1598 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 d2, queen g3, rook a1 f1, knight b3, pawn a2 b2 f2 c3 e3.
Black: king g8, queen g2, rook f8, knight h2, pawn d5 e6 g6 a7 f7 g7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (27 against 23; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 25, with 25 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25... Nxf1+ 26. Rxf1 Qxf1
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f1 keeps the pressure (+3.9).
- Well found: queen to f1 (+3.8).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxf1, then Qxf1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 25… Nxf1+ — knight to f1 (capture) with check
- 26. Rxf1 — rook to f1 (capture)
- Qxf1 — queen to f1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Winning exchange
A forced series of captures on one square ends in your favour.
A winning exchange is a forced series of captures on one square that leaves you ahead in material. It is pure arithmetic: count the attackers and defenders of the square and note the value of every piece in the queue. Capture in the right order — cheap pieces first, expensive ones later — or a winning trade turns into a losing one. The classic error is stopping the count halfway and missing the opponent's final recapture.
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 011
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads