Chess tactics
Fork
A fork is one piece attacking two or more enemy pieces at the same time, so the opponent can only save one.
What it is
A fork attacks two or more targets with a single move. The opponent gets one move to respond and cannot defend everything, so you win whichever target they abandon. Knights fork most often because their move is hard to block and hard to see, but every piece can do it, and pawns forking two pieces are the most brutal of all because almost nothing is worth trading for a pawn.
How to spot one
- Enemy king and queen on the same colour square — a knight two moves away forks them.
- Two undefended pieces a knight-move apart from a square you can reach safely.
- A pawn push that attacks two pieces standing side by side on the same rank.
- Any check that also happens to hit something else. Checks are forcing, so they are the cheapest forks to calculate.
A worked example
The knight on e3 heads for f5 or d5 looking for a square that hits the king and a second target at once. The pattern to memorise is not this position but the shape: king and a valuable piece both a knight-move from one reachable square.