Fork: queen to f1 (b5)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1834 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 c2, rook f1, knight g5, pawn h2 b3 f4 g4 a5 e5.
Black: king g8, queen b5, rook d4, knight f5, pawn c5 e6 a7 b7 g7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 37.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (23 against 22; 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 37, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f, h.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
37... Qxf1+ 38. Kxf1 Ne3+ 39. Ke2 Nxc2
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f1 keeps the pressure (+4.3).
- Well found: knight to e3 (+4.2).
- Strong! knight to c2 is the sharp choice (+4.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kxf1, then Ne3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 37… Qxf1+ — queen to f1 (capture) with check
- 38. Kxf1 — king to f1 (capture)
- Ne3+ — knight to e3 with check
- 39. Ke2 — king to e2
- Nxc2 — knight to c2 (capture)
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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