Fork: queen to c7
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1813 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 h2, queen g5, rook h7, bishop c3, pawn f2 g4 h4.
Black: king d5, queen d7, rook d1, knight f5, pawn e4 e6 f7.
7 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 37.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 20 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on h2, the black king on d5.
It is Black to move on move 37, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: g, h.
The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
37... Qc7+ 38. Kg2 Qxc3 39. Qd8+ Nd6
Why it works
- Great move! queen to c7 keeps the pressure (+3.9).
- Well found: queen to c3 (+4.0).
- Strong! knight to d6 is the sharp choice (+4.5).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Kg2, then Qxc3 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 37… Qc7+ — queen to c7 with check
- 38. Kg2 — king to g2
- Qxc3 — queen to c3 (capture)
- 39. Qd8+ — queen to d8 with check
- Nd6 — knight to d6
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.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
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 013
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