Best forks

One piece, two or three targets at once, and nothing can cover them all. The twenty most devastating forks in the collection, strongest first.

Forks in Chess960

A fork is one piece attacking two or more targets at the same time. Whatever the defender saves, the rest falls — and when the king is one of the targets, the fork wins material outright, because the check must be answered first. The knight is the classic forking piece, striking squares no other piece can guard, but pawns, bishops, rooks and the queen all fork too.

Chess960 puts the targets on unfamiliar squares. Kings, queens and rooks begin on files they never occupy in the standard game, so the geometry that lines two of them up for a single fork is fresh every time and far harder to foresee.

This ranking holds the most destructive forks in the collection and orders them so the heaviest double blows — the ones that win the most and leave the least defence — sit at the top.

Key terms Fork (double attack)