Fork: bishop to f6 (h4)
li-05hkGnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1929 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.
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 g3, rook f1, bishop e2 h4, knight d3, pawn a2 b2 g2 c3 h3 d4 e5.
Black: king g7, queen d8, rook a8 h8, bishop a6 d6, knight f5, pawn d5 b6 e6 g6 a7.
13 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (30 against 33; 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 g7.
It is White to move on move 25, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25. Bf6+ Qxf6 26. exf6+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to f6 keeps the pressure (+4.7).
- Well found: pawn to f6 (+4.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxf6, then exf6+ and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 25. Bf6+ — bishop to f6 with check
- Qxf6 — queen to f6 (capture)
- 26. exf6+ — pawn to f6 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Check chase
Every move is a check — the king is chased into losing ground.
In a check chase every one of your moves is a check, so the opponent never gets a free second. The king is herded across the board until it loses a piece or walks into a decisive blow. Such lines are the easiest to calculate: each check allows only a handful of replies, so try them all. Make it a habit to start calculating any sharp position with the checks — they are the most forcing moves on the board.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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