Desperado (chess) Desperado (chess) In chess, a desperado piece is a piece that is or trapped, but captures an enemy piece before it is itself captured. This can be in either a situation where both sides have pieces, "...in which you use your doomed piece to eat as much material as possible before it dies"; or alternatively a sacrifice that will result in stalemate if it is captured. A simple example illustrating the first definition comes from a 1958 game between future World Champions Tigran Petrosian and Bobby Fischer (see diagram). White had just captured the e5-pawn with his knight on f3.
Fork (chess) Fork (chess) In chess, a fork is a tactic whereby a single piece makes two or more direct attacks simultaneously. Most commonly two pieces are threatened, which is also sometimes called a "". The attacker usually aims to gain by one of the opponent's pieces. The defender often finds it difficult to counter two or more threats in a single move. The attacking piece is called the "forking" piece; the pieces attacked are said to be "forked". A piece that is defended can still be said to be forked if the forking piece has a lower value. Besides attacking pieces,