In chess, a fork is a tactic in which a piece attacks multiple enemy pieces simultaneously. The attacker usually aims to capture one of the forked pieces. The defender often cannot counter every threat. A fork is most effective when it is forcing , such as when the king is put in check. A fork is a type of double attack .
A fork is an example of a double attack . The type of fork is named after the type of forking piece. For example, a fork by a knight is a knight fork. The attacked pieces are forked. [1] If the king is one of the attacked pieces, the term absolute fork is sometimes used, while a fork not involving the enemy king is a relative fork. [2]
A fork of the king and queen, the highest material-gaining fork possible, is sometimes called a royal fork. A fork of the enemy king, queen, and one (or both) rooks is sometimes called a grand fork. A knight fork of the enemy king, queen, and possibly other pieces is sometimes called a family fork or family check. [3] [4]
While any piece can deliver a fork, knights are particularly effective at creating forks because they cannot be captured by the pieces they attack, and as a minor piece they are less valuable than rooks and queens. [5] [6]
Compared to forks by other pieces, a queen fork requires more specific conditions to be helpful due to the queen's higher value. However, a queen fork can often lead to material or positional gain when the forked pieces are undefended, poorly coordinated, or when one piece is the king.[ citation needed ]
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This example is from the first round of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 between Mohamed Tissir and Alexey Dreev. [7] After
White resigned. In the final position the black knight forks White's queen and rook; after the queen moves away, Black will win the exchange.
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This example is from the ninth round of the Clarin GP Final between Guillermo Soppe and Fernando Braga. [8] After
White resigned. The only move is 41.Ke2 which enables a royal fork with 41...Nc3+, winning the queen.
Position after 4.Nc3. Black can play 4...Nxe4 since he has a fork trick. |
After 4...Nxe4 5.Nxe4 d5, White is forked and Black will regain a piece. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In the Two Knights Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6) after 4.Nc3, Black can eliminate White's e4-pawn immediately with
due to the fork trick
regaining either the bishop or the knight.
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. It can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally, combining the powers of the rook and bishop. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. Because the queen is the strongest piece, a pawn is promoted to a queen in the vast majority of cases.
The bishop is a piece in the game of chess. It moves and captures along diagonals without jumping over interfering pieces. Each player begins the game with two bishops. The starting squares are c1 and f1 for White's bishops, and c8 and f8 for Black's bishops.
This glossary of chess explains commonly used terms in chess, in alphabetical order. Some of these terms have their own pages, like fork and pin. For a list of unorthodox chess pieces, see Fairy chess piece; for a list of terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems; for a list of named opening lines, see List of chess openings; for a list of chess-related games, see List of chess variants; for a list of terms general to board games, see Glossary of board games.
The French Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
In chess, a smothered mate is a checkmate delivered by a knight in which the mated king is unable to move because it is completely surrounded by its own pieces, which a knight can jump over.
The Two Knights Defense is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
In chess, an X-ray or X-ray attack is a tactic where a piece indirectly controls a square from the other side of an intervening piece. Generally, a piece performing an X-ray either:
The Vienna Game is an opening in chess that begins with the moves:
Alekhine's Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
In chess and similar games, check is a condition that occurs when a player's king is under threat of capture on the opponent's next turn. A king so threatened is said to be in check. A player must get out of check if possible by moving the king to an unattacked square, interposing a piece between the threatening piece and the king, or capturing the threatening piece. If the player cannot remove the check by any of these options, the game ends in checkmate and the player loses. Players cannot make any move that puts their own king in check.
In chess and other related games, a double check is a check delivered by two pieces simultaneously. In chess notation, it is almost always represented the same way as a single check ("+"), but is sometimes symbolized by "++". This article uses "++" for double check and "#" for checkmate.
In chess, promotion is the replacement of a pawn with a new piece when the pawn is moved to its last rank. The player replaces the pawn immediately with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. The new piece does not have to be a previously captured piece. Promotion is mandatory when moving to the last rank; the pawn cannot remain as a pawn.
The Légal Trap or Blackburne Trap is a chess opening trap, characterized by a queen sacrifice followed by checkmate involving three minor pieces if Black accepts the sacrifice. The trap is named after the French player Sire de Légall. Joseph Henry Blackburne, a British master and one of the world's top five players in the latter part of the 19th century, set the trap on many occasions.
In chess, a desperado is a piece that is either en prise or trapped, but captures an enemy piece before it is itself captured in order to compensate the loss a little, or is used as a sacrifice that will result in stalemate if it is captured. The former case can arise in a situation where both sides have hanging pieces, in which case these pieces are used to win material prior to being captured. A desperado in the latter case is usually a rook or a queen; such a piece is sometimes also called crazy or mad.
In chess, a swindle is a ruse by which a player in a losing position tricks their opponent and thereby achieves a win or draw instead of the expected loss. It may also refer more generally to obtaining a win or draw from a clearly losing position. I. A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld distinguish among "traps", "pitfalls", and "swindles". In their terminology, a "trap" refers to a situation where players go wrong through their own efforts. In a "pitfall", the beneficiary of the pitfall plays an active role, creating a situation where a plausible move by the opponent will turn out badly. A "swindle" is a pitfall adopted by a player who has a clearly lost game. Horowitz and Reinfeld observe that swindles, "though ignored in virtually all chess books", "play an enormously important role in over-the-board chess, and decide the fate of countless games".
A pawnless chess endgame is a chess endgame in which only a few pieces remain, and no pawns. The basic checkmates are types of pawnless endgames. Endgames without pawns do not occur very often in practice except for the basic checkmates of king and queen versus king, king and rook versus king, and queen versus rook. Other cases that occur occasionally are (1) a rook and minor piece versus a rook and (2) a rook versus a minor piece, especially if the minor piece is a bishop.
In chess, a windmill is a tactic in which a piece repeatedly gains material while simultaneously creating an inescapable series of alternating direct and discovered checks. Because the opponent must attend to check every move, they are unable to prevent their pieces from being captured; thus, windmills, while very rare, tend to be extremely powerful.
A battery in chess is a formation that consists of two or more pieces on the same rank, file, or diagonal. It is a tactic involved in planning a series of captures to remove the protection of the opponent's king, or to simply gain in the exchanges.
In chess, a skewer is an attack upon two pieces in a line and is similar to a pin. A skewer is the opposite of a pin; the difference is that in a skewer, the more valuable piece is the one under direct attack and the less valuable piece is behind it. The opponent is compelled to move the more valuable piece to avoid its capture, thereby exposing the less valuable piece which can then be captured. Only line pieces can skewer; kings, knights, and pawns cannot.
Here White can give a "family fork" by attacking three black pieces at once: king, queen, and rook, with 1.Nf4+.
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