A fork is one move attacking two targets at once. Your opponent can only save one of them — the other falls. It is the first tactic every player learns and the one that keeps deciding games at every level, from playground blunders to grandmaster time scrambles. Solve the featured puzzle below — taken from a real game — then train forks at your own level in the trainer.
Knights are the fork specialists: they attack squares no other piece covers, so their double attacks are the hardest to see coming. A knight fork against king and queen — the royal fork — wins on the spot. But every piece forks: pawns hit two pieces a file apart, bishops and rooks fork along their lines, and the queen is a forking machine on an open board. The fork entry in the glossary breaks down each piece's version of the trick.
Look for loose pieces first. Two undefended targets are the raw material; then hunt for the square that attacks both. A hanging piece anywhere on the board is half a fork already. Check every knight jump around the enemy king — if the king and another piece stand a knight's move apart from a common square, the fork is often already there. The same scan run on your own army is the defense: keep your pieces defended and off shared fork squares, and most knight tricks evaporate.
The knight. Its jump attacks squares no other piece controls, so knight forks are the hardest double attacks to anticipate — and because the knight is a minor piece, it profitably forks everything from pawns to the king and queen at once. Queens fork constantly too, but their targets can often defend each other along the same lines.
Keep your pieces defended and watch squares from which one enemy move would attack two of your men — especially knight-move distances from your king and queen. Most forks punish loose pieces, so the single habit of asking "what is undefended?" before every move removes the raw material forks need.
Yes — forks are usually the first tactic worth drilling. They appear in nearly every beginner game, the pattern is concrete and visual, and the trainer serves fork puzzles from around 300 rating upward, so you can start seeing them long before you study anything deeper.