Bishop Forks Trickier than Knight Forks?
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Jan 11, 2025
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#2
Absolutely agree! Knights are the last pieces you learn how to control, because of how weird they move compared to other pieces, so people tend to be more wary about them specially in longer time controls, often overlooking what other pieces can do. Though this isn’t exactly a fork, I can’t count how many times I have won games like this in the opening due to people not even considering the move Bb4, I found this move really to see, but I’ve done this tactic a LOT of times in different games, even OTB. https://www.chess.com/live/game/130392578517
PureDrill wrote:
Absolutely agree! Knights are the last pieces you learn how to control, because of how weird they move compared to other pieces, so people tend to be more wary about them specially in longer time controls, often overlooking what other pieces can do. Though this isn’t exactly a fork, I can’t count how many times I have won games like this in the opening due to people not even considering the move Bb4, I found this move really to see, but I’ve done this tactic a LOT of times in different games, even OTB. https://www.chess.com/live/game/130392578517
The position in that game displays a "pin", not a fork.
Does anyone else feel that bishop forks are trickier to notice than knight forks? I have felt this, especially at relatively higher levels, where the player is usually well acquainted with knight-fork patterns and tactics. I don't know how to put this, but when my opponent's knight is loitering "near" my king or "close to" more valuable pieces like my rook or queen, I almost always have a subconscious suspicion that helps me detect any potential fork. Bishop forks, on the other hand does not need the bishop to be wandering close to valuable pieces/king, and happen like sudden thunderstrikes, where the unnoticed and seemingly innocent bishop sitting far away almost suddenly turns into a villain, jumping out of nowhere and forking two distant/nearby valuable pieces. The only way to be alert of this, in my opinion, is to develop the instinct "Don't keep rooks/rook and queen on a diagonal!"
Just to illustrate this, even super GMs fall for bishop traps (see for example this game between Arjun Erigaisi and Nodirbek Abdusattorov https://www.chess.com/events/2023-qatar-masters/09/Abdusattorov_Nodirbek-Erigaisi_Arjun, where in spite of having around 17 minutes in clock, Arjun fell for a bishop fork). However, I have hardly seen GMs fall for knight forks, unless of course the time is really low on their clock.