Fork: knight to f5 (d4)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1568 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 h1, queen g4, rook f1, knight d4, pawn a2 g2 h2 c3 d5 e5.
Black: king g8, queen h6, rook d8 f8, knight a6, pawn a7 b7 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (23 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 21, with 45 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: b, f.
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
21. Nf5 Qg6 22. Ne7+ Kh8 23. Nxg6+
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f5 keeps the pressure (+4.8).
- Well found: knight to e7 (+5.3).
- Strong! knight to g6 is the sharp choice (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qg6, then Ne7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 21. Nf5 — knight to f5
- Qg6 — queen to g6
- 22. Ne7+ — knight to e7 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 23. Nxg6+ — knight to g6 (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.
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.
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 011
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