Fork: queen to g3
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1362 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 g1, queen d4, rook c1 e1, bishop g3 d5, pawn h2 e4 a5 b5 f5.
Black: king b8, queen h3, rook d8 h8, bishop c8, knight e5, pawn f6 a7 b7 f7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (30 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 b8.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 29 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, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: e, h.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27... Qxg3+ 28. hxg3 Nf3+ 29. Kf2 Nxd4
Why it works
- Brilliant! The queen on g3 is a sacrifice that works — you stand better (+2.4).
- Well found: knight to f3 (+2.6).
- Strong! knight to d4 is the sharp choice (+2.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead hxg3, then Nf3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 27… Qxg3+ — queen to g3 (capture) with check
- 28. hxg3 — pawn to g3 (capture)
- Nf3+ — knight to f3 with check
- 29. Kf2 — king to f2
- Nxd4 — knight to d4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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.
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 010
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