Fork: queen to e2 (e5)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 2375 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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.
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
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 g2, queen g6, rook d1, pawn e2 h2 g3 a4 b4 c5.
Black: king f8, queen e5, rook d7, pawn d4 h5 a6 c6.
9 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (20 against 18; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on f8.
It is Black to move on move 30, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, e, g.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30... Qxe2+ 31. Kh3 Qxd1 32. Qf6+ Ke8
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e2 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Well found: queen to d1 (+4.9).
- Strong! king to e8 is the sharp choice (+5.3).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Kh3, then Qxd1 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 30… Qxe2+ — queen to e2 (capture) with check
- 31. Kh3 — king to h3
- Qxd1 — queen to d1 (capture)
- 32. Qf6+ — queen to f6 with check
- Ke8 — king to e8
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.
Save the piece
The attacked piece can be saved — with profit.
Saving the piece: one of your pieces is attacked, and the job is not to lose it for nothing. There are several tools: retreat with tempo, defend it, block the attack, or create a bigger counter-threat. Before retreating automatically, look for a retreat that attacks something — you save the piece and gain time in one move. The typical mistake is panicking onto the first available square, where the piece gets trapped again.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 015
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