Talking Tactics: The "Fork"

Howdy! We're going to talk about tactics in the next couple of posts. So, what are "tactics"? How are tactics different from "strategy"?

"Strategy" is our overall plan for how we are going to win. When we talk about the "jobs" we have in the opening game (fighting for central control, developing minor pieces, ensuring the king is safe) we are discussing strategic ideas that we will use for the beginning. For instance, we know that we need to fight for central control, but we can do this several different ways. We can press forward with the pawns on the e or d files, we can open with the knight on the f or c files, we can even try attacking from an angle getting bishops to the b or g files.

So, "Strategy" is essentially what it is we want to do to win. "Tactics," are how we make that plan happen. The first "tactical" play we are going to talk about is called the "fork".

The Fork

The fork is when we use one piece to attack or threaten two or more of our opponent's pieces at the same time. We can see multiple variations of a fork using several different pieces. One of the best pieces when you want to pull off a "fork" attack is the knight since the knight doesn't attack in a straight line and the knight can jump over other pieces.

Here's one example. In this setup, you can see that White's knight has Black in a real bind. Here we have Nc7+ and the knight is attacking Black's king on e8, the rook on a8, and the queen on d5. What is great about a forked attack is that we make our opponent make the miserable choice of what piece they want to lose. What makes this scenario worse is that with Black's king in check, they don't even get a chance to make a choice, they have to move the king to safety, leaving the rook or queen to their fate.

We will talk about more "fork" attacks later - but for now remember that a "fork" attack is when one piece attacks several opposing pieces at once and makes the opponent pick which piece they want to save (because they can't save them both).