Fork: bishop to e5 (h2)
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1708 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 h5, rook b1 c1, bishop h2, pawn f2 g2 a3 c3 e3 h3 b4.
Black: king g8, queen f6, rook f7 d8, bishop h8, pawn c4 e4 h4 d5 f5 g5 a7.
12 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 29 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 34, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
34. Be5 Qxe5 35. Qxg5+ Bg7 36. Qxd8+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e5 keeps the pressure (+3.2).
- Well found: queen to g5 (+3.1).
- Strong! queen to d8 is the sharp choice (+3.6).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qxe5, then Qxg5+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 34. Be5 — bishop to e5
- Qxe5 — queen to e5 (capture)
- 35. Qxg5+ — queen to g5 (capture) with check
- Bg7 — bishop to g7
- 36. Qxd8+ — queen to d8 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
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?
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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