Friday, February 1, 2013

Knight forks tutorial

Since we're on the subject of forks, here's an amusing game. White's play was execrable, but the game features two knight forks, one in a variation, the other in the game continuation. White played a sort of demented Kopec System against my Sicilian. Houdini 3 doesn't like my 5...Ne5, winning the bishop pair but exchanging off my opponent's bad bishop, preferring 5..Nf6 with a small advantage. White should have responded to my 6...Bh6!? (see diagram) with 7.Qe2, when the position is about equal. After his 7.Qg3??, I already had a winning advantage! Do you see how?
After 7...Bf4! the bishop was immune since 8.Qxf4? Nxd3+ would fork White's king and queen. So 8.Qh3 was forced, when 8...d5! discovered an attack on White's queen. Now the only way to save White's bishop would have been the abject 9.g4 Bxg4 10.Qf1. He missed this, playing 9.Qh4??, when 9...Nxd3+ won a piece and left White's queen in mortal danger. He fell into a knight fork with 10.Kd1? g5! 11.Qh5 Bg4+! 12.Qxg4 Nxf2+, and resigned.

1 comment:

Scrabble Hints said...

Nice tutorial. I hope this helps me in future games!