A fork is a position from which one piece can attack multiple enemy pieces. This is a valuable tactic to use, because your opponent can only move one piece per turn. So if you, for example, attack both of his rooks at one time with a knight, he can only move one of them on his turn, and you will be able to take the other rook with your knight.
In the beginning and middle of the game, the knights are the most common pieces used for forks. The c and f (King-bishop and Queen-bishop) pawns are already set for forks at the beginning of the game. Notice that a bishop must be in place to secure the knight in this example, or the fork wouldn't mean anything because black could just take the knight with the queen.
Not all forks work. This fork is easily broken when black moves a rook to check white's king. White must move his king, and black can then move the other rook to safety.
Usually the best fork is one that attacks the king, because then the victim must respond to check and has a harder time squirming out of it. A fork that attacks the King, Queen, and a rook is called a "Royal Fork." Although this may be great to do to your opponent, there are many forks on lesser pieces that can be used to gain an advantage. In this case, black gets out of a fork by applying his own checking fork! (or would that be "forking check?")
FIND THE FORK: Click here for some tricks that will help you spot those nasty forks.
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