Fork: knight to c6 (b4·2)
li-03FGqnaming 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 1705 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 g1, queen f3, rook d1 d3, knight b4, pawn a2 f2 h2 b3 g3.
Black: king g8, queen e7, rook d8 e8, bishop b2, knight f6, pawn a6 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (27 against 29; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26. Nc6 Qe1+ 27. Rxe1
Why it works
- Great move! knight to c6 keeps the pressure (+4.1).
- Well found: rook to e1 (+4.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qe1+, then Rxe1 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 26. Nc6 — knight to c6
- Qe1+ — queen to e1 with check
- 27. Rxe1 — rook to e1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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