Fork: queen to e4 (e1)
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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 1932 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.
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 h1, queen e1, rook d8, bishop b2, knight g5, pawn a2 h2 b3 g3 c4.
Black: king g6, queen c2, rook e4, bishop g1 g4, pawn h3 c6 a7 b7 c7 f7 g7.
10 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (25 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 24, with 47 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Qxe4+ Qxe4+ 25. Nxe4 Be3 26. Nd2
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e4 keeps the pressure (+3.3).
- Well found: knight to e4 (+3.4).
- Strong! knight to d2 is the sharp choice (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxe4+, then Nxe4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 24. Qxe4+ — queen to e4 (capture) with check
- Qxe4+ — queen to e4 (capture) with check
- 25. Nxe4 — knight to e4 (capture)
- Be3 — bishop to e3
- 26. Nd2 — knight to d2
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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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