Of Mice and Men

That's not how I see it.  To me there is seldom any expectation of winning the screened piece (the piece behind the pin). If there is any expectation of winning a piece, it's almost always the pinned piece.  But again, neither piece may be a target - as I stated before, except in the technical sense.  

Of course whatever one's perspective might be is fine.

Wow, a topic in the "Hot Topics" category that isn't total garbage.

and as a well-written novella, it's a quick and easy read.

Do you know the story of the roaring pawn?

Fork me,Batgirl not f**k me

Interesting article.  Enjoyed the perspective. 

How about a little more complex double threat example from the famous study by Reti?

Here we deal with two threats (first let's define a threat as a situation where a piece is one move away from direct attack by an enemy piece; a threat of second order requires two moves to establish a direct attack).

After 1.Kg7, there are two threats.

The first threat is by White's K to get in the h-pawn's box in two moves.

The other threat is by White's K to get in time to give support to his c-pawn for promotion.

Reminds me of Averbakh's discussion of the double attack in Chess Tactics for Advanced Players.

(Averbakh's book also does more than any other book on my shelves to explicate the theory of contacts that give substance to Nimzowitch's suggestion that we teach beginners all wrong, and that relationships must precede how the pieces move.)

How's that?

While I imagine the rook and bishop fork to be most uncommon, I believe its unfamiliarity dwells in the subjective nature of the player. After all, every fork is as overt as the mind will grant (ahem).

hey bat girl, the rook fork in the top of the news is not a fork

The Rook fork-ness from the diagram @Batgirl gave in the text is easily explained by Averbakh's "contacts theory" that @Ziryab mentioned before. By the way, he was the first to adopt the modern approach of teaching beginners with relationships that should precede how the pieces move since I started banging on the idea ten years ago (By the way, James Stripes maintains an excellent chess blog!)

@Batgirl said

"Here is an example they give of a Rook fork - the fork-ness of it is less clear to me:"

ROOK FORK DIAGRAM

Polgar defined fork against two targets (could be piece or square).

1.Rd7 is a double attack consisting of a) Direct attack on Black Q, b) the second target is f7, so Qf7 is a threat of checkmate along the 7th.

Thank you, batgirl. This was very nice and refreshing to read. Chess is a ghost that has haunted Linguists for quite a long time.

For instances, can we agree that 'forks' and 'pins' appeared on the chessboard before there were words to name them? 

Some player makes a move which happens to be a very simple, natural and unassuming fork. But remember: this was the first fork ever! Onlookers will go wow and then (a quite human-like reaction) i guess they will start looking (away?) for a name to give to the 'thing' they have just experienced. In order, one may say, to 'pin' the experience down.

The "different levels of abstraction" I think will come in a bit later (hello, roaringpawn!), in a logical sense I mean. 

It is true that some of the basic rules of the game (the way the Knight moves, the fact that pieces can be taken) may appear to have come first (but is that so? what about an Indian frog forking two gnats on two different water lily leaves).

In any case, the primordial experience of the unnamed 'fork' may inspire changes in the rules of the game, to the extent that the original game may end up being forgotten. Indeed, after the first 'fork'  has been experienced and named, for sure somebody will start brooding about hey guys that was great I want more of that how can we get a more 'afforkable' game?

Would that be an instance of the ancient human greed? Or just a representation of that erm... sentiment? 

Ok, ok, but then what we most need is a Queen..

Ciao @bumiputra, good to see you back!!

ciao ciao, it's nice to see you, roaring, and it's also nice to notice that you can still spot the interesting threads, what was the German word for that aufkindergardensollichwerden?  ...no not that one, it was one of those beautiful German portmanteau words, which described the peculiar ability chess players have of-noticing-different-things-at-one-time, with no spaces in the middle, first registered in a Soviet psychological study also about memory I guess oh err...     (Djakow, Petrowski, & Rudik, 1927)

 Kinda a dum 'stretchy' title. Ohh !....any piece, except the King, can deliver a Smother Mate. Tho' the King can get the assist !

Btw, someone tell me if this song 'stretches' into Steinbeck's academic study.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAv71VbdkBc

I remember reading (as I kinda like their bohemian + macabre music) that....

Bob Weir stated in a 2004 interview that the song's lyrics (Jack Straw) were partly based on John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men.

ok as you're at it then you may also want to remember what the dormouse said...

....eek eek !