Theory Thursday. Episode 1

I wanted to make a series of weekly posts dealing with chess theory and tactics that can give you an  advantage over your opponent. Today, we will be talking about forking.

I started using this strategy regularly after having it pulled on me several times. Basically, this is a move commonly used by the Knight, since they have the most varied range of motion. A fork occurs when your piece is not threatened, yet the piece can attack more than one of your opponent's pieces. This is most effective when the King or Queen is put in danger with a Rook on the other end. What will happen is that the King or Queen will move out of harm's way and the Rook is left exposed so you can swipe it with the Knight. Even if you need to sacrifice the Knight, this still works out in your favor since you are giving it up to get a more valuable piece.

Forks can quickly change the momentum of the game into your favor, especially if you are only slightly down or pretty even. Losing a major piece like the Rook or Queen is a big blow to your opponent and severely limits their checkmate capabilities.

You can even set up a three-way fork if you're lucky. These give you a bigger range of capturing options, especially when a King is involved since they will be forced to move the King to stay alive. After this, you have your choice of which piece to take.

Forking is at its most powerful when your opponent relies heavily on their Queen. Assuming you are white, once the Queen is out of d8, a Knight on the c7 square can be a revolutionary move. This forks the King and the Rook. The King will probably be able to move  to the d8 square, momentarily putting pressure on you, but the Rook is ripe for the taking and more often than not, you won't even have to worry about exchanging the Knight.

So this pretty simple concept can change games. I use this a lot because I am aggressive with my Knights, and lower rated opponents don't always see where the Knight will be in a few moves. How I proceed to use this technique is try to envision what the perfect position for my Knight is, and then I figure out a safe course to set up the play. This obviously doesn't always work, but when it does, you can often dominate the game.