Fork: queen to f4 (c7)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 1829 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 e2, rook c1, bishop f3 h4, pawn f2 g2 h2 a3 c3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook c8, knight f6 d7, pawn a5 b6 h6 f7 g7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (26 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 21, with 36 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): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c, d.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
21... Qf4 22. Qc2 Qxh4
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f4 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: queen to h4 (+3.8).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qc2, then Qxh4 and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 21… Qf4 — queen to f4
- 22. Qc2 — queen to c2
- Qxh4 — queen to h4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Queen fork
The queen lands on a square from which it attacks two targets at once.
The queen strikes along files, ranks and diagonals, so she forks more often than any other piece. Look for a square where the queen attacks two undefended targets at once — most often a check combined with a loose piece. Diagonal blows are especially venomous: a slanting check that also eyes a rook in the corner is the classic of the genre. Remember that both targets must be unprotected, or your «fork» is just a shot into the air.
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 013
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