Forks are one of the many key strategies that you need to know in order to become really good at chess. When done in the middle of a game, can be a major help to you.

What is a fork?

A fork is when you have one piece attack multiple pieces at the same time. The number of pieces attacked can be as much as 4, although this will mostly likely never happen. A fork will cause the opponent to decide which piece they feel is more important and give up on the piece they need less. Now lets go look at some examples of a fork.

Example 1:

In this example, white has moved the pawn on the c file up on in order to attack both the bishop and the knight at the same time. Black will have to decide whether or not they want the bishop or the knight.

As some of you might have noticed, black can still take a piece in this pin. Since it is black’s turn, they can decide to take the c5 pawn with the bishop in order to lose a piece without gaining anything in return. Even though black is losing the trade, they are still able to take a piece away from white.

Example 2:

In this position, the white knight is attacking both the black queen and king at the same time. In this position, black is forced to give up the queen because they are in check since black only has one option which is to move the king.

Example 3:

In this example, the white bishop is attacking both the king and rook. In this position, black is forced to move the king and give up the rook since they are in check.

Example 4:

In this scenario, the white has managed to get in a position where the black king and knight are in the same row. This allowed white to create a fork causing black to lose the knight giving white the advantage and making it easy for them to win.

Example 5:

In the example, white has created a fork with the king involved. This causes black to lose the rook causing an easy finish for white.

Example 6:

Now I did say that you can get up to 4 pieces pinned at once. The scenario above is one example of this. This is highly unlikely to happen in a game. If it does, that means a lot of things had to happen in your favor.

Wow, that was a lot of examples. Now, If you look back at it, you will notice I have given you an example of a pin with every single piece that can pin and also an example of a 4-piece pin. Pins are one of the simplest tactics, but at the same time one of the most helpful ones.

Next time you play a game with your friend, try looking for different ways to fork them.

Forks

Smothered Mate

Pin