Fork: knight to c6 (e5)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1871 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 h1, queen a4, rook b1, bishop g3, knight e5, pawn a2 g2 c5 b7.
Black: king b8, queen e6, rook d8 h8, knight f6, pawn e2 h3 h6 a7 c7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (24 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 b8.
It is White to move on move 32, with 47 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: e, h.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
32. Nc6+ Qxc6 33. Qxc6 Rd1+ 34. Kh2
Why it works
- Great move! knight to c6 keeps the pressure (+3.1).
- Well found: queen to c6 (+3.1).
- Strong! king to h2 is the sharp choice (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxc6, then Qxc6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 32. Nc6+ — knight to c6 with check
- Qxc6 — queen to c6 (capture)
- 33. Qxc6 — queen to c6 (capture)
- Rd1+ — rook to d1 with check
- 34. Kh2 — king to h2
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
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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