Fork: bishop to e2 (c4)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1452 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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.
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 f3, rook d1, bishop e4 g5, pawn a2 f2 g2 c3 d4 h4 e5.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook b2, bishop c4 g7, pawn h5 e6 g6 a7 f7.
12 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (27 against 25; 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 g8.
It is Black to move on move 23, with 44 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): b — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c, d.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23... Be2 24. Qf4 Bxd1
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e2 keeps the pressure (+2.9).
- Well found: bishop to d1 (+3.4).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Qf4, then Bxd1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 23… Be2 — bishop to e2
- 24. Qf4 — queen to f4
- Bxd1 — bishop to d1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Bishop fork
The bishop attacks two pieces on crossing diagonals at once.
A bishop fork happens when the bishop lands where two diagonals cross and attacks a target on each of them. Both victims must stand on the bishop's color — that is the first thing to verify. Scan for loose enemy pieces that share the color of squares with their own king or queen. A common sin is placing your own pieces on squares of one color and handing your opponent exactly this geometry.
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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