About forks

Forks are the most common tactics that win material. With a fork you make a move with one of your pieces. After the move, this piece is attacking two (or more) of your opponent's pieces at the same time. Very often, your opponent won't be able to defend against both threats with their next move, and you can capture one of the attacked pieces.

Forks are possible with all pieces. You will practice forks with pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and queens in separate levels. King forks are also possible, but they’re much rarer, because the king usually doesn’t attack until the game is nearing its end.

How to spot a fork

When you start learning forks, you have to look at all possible moves to determine which pieces are going to be attacked by that move. With more and more practice, you will be able to quickly see which attacking moves are possible, and you will spot many forks immediately and without effort.

Some forks can be more difficult to see—for example, if they involve the whole board, use diagonal backward moves or attacks, or are in complicated positions where a lot of moves and attacks are possible.

If there are any unprotected pieces, forks (as well as some other tactics and combinations) are much more likely. Therefore, it is always a good idea to look for unprotected pieces and any way to attack those.

About pawn forks

Pawn forks don’t happen as often as other types of forks, because pawns can only move in one direction, and very slowly at that. They also can only attack at most two pieces at the same time. However, pawns are the least valuable pieces, so any pawn attack on a piece other than a pawn is always attacking a higher-value piece and threatens to win material, no matter if the attacked pieces are protected or not.

Having said that, pawn forks are an important tactic in the opening, when both players try to get influence over the center of the board with pawns and pieces. You will see some examples of this in the following puzzles.

It is sometimes possible to defend against other types of forks by moving one piece away and protecting the other piece, but this is not possible against pawn forks, so they almost always win material immediately

Examples

Black can win material with the pawn fork 1...d4, attacking the rook on e3 and the knight on c3 at the same time. After White moves the more valuable rook to a safe square, Black can capture the knight and has a winning material advantage.

Black can win material with the pawn fork 1...e4, attacking the knight on f3 and the queen on d3 at the same time.

Instead of 1...e4, Black might try a knight fork with 1...Nb2?, attacking the rook on d1 and the queen on d3 at the same time. White could however defend against that with the intermediate check 2.Qd6+ and a subsequent rook move. 1...e4 is therefore the only winning move - note that the intermediate check 2.Qd6+? is not a good option with the knight on c4 protecting that square.

How to spot a pawn fork

Pawn forks are usually easy to spot because of the limited moves available to pawns.

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