Fork: knight to c6 (e5·5)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Difficulty 2177 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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 d1, rook a1 f1, bishop d2 d3, knight b5 e5, pawn b2 g2 h2 a3 e3 f4.
Black: king g8, queen b8, rook a8 f8, bishop e6 e7, knight f6 d7, pawn c5 d5 a7 f7 g7 h7.
14 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 37 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 15, with 52 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, d.
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
15. Nc6 Qb6 16. Nxe7+
Why it works
- Great move! knight to c6 keeps the pressure (+3.8).
- Well found: knight to e7 (+4.0).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Qb6, then Nxe7+ and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 15. Nc6 — knight to c6
- Qb6 — queen to b6
- 16. Nxe7+ — knight to e7 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Knight fork
One knight move attacks two targets at once — the opponent can only save one.
A fork is one move that attacks two targets at once, and no piece forks better than the knight. Look through the knight's eyes: it jumps in an L and never moves along straight lines, which is exactly why its threats get missed. Both victims of a knight fork always stand on squares of one color, while the knight strikes from the opposite color. Hunt for the square from which the knight hits the king and a heavy piece at once.
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).
Pack 015
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