In an ICC-rated blitz game last night, my final move was a knight fork which simultaneously attacked my opponent’s king, queen, and both rooks. I’ve never seen that before and am wondering if there are any game scores on record with a similar move.
Wow. I’m almost certain I have been in game or two, waaaaaaay back when, with three pieces attacked, but never four.
Here’s the game score. The final position with a knight on f7 attacking K on h8, Q on d6, R on d8 and R on h6 looks bizarre.
Event “ICC 2 12”]
[Site “Internet Chess Club”]
[Date “2009.05.13”]
[Round “-”]
[White “JulianusRex”]
[Black “ibnuzakaria”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ICCResult “Black resigns”]
[WhiteElo “1202”]
[BlackElo “1071”]
[Opening “King’s Indian: East Indian defense”]
[ECO “A48”]
[NIC “QP.06”]
[Time “22:17:28”]
[TimeControl “120+12”]
- d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. e3 Bg7 4. c3 d5 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nbd2 a6 7. O-O Bg4 8.
Qc2 b6 9. e4 dxe4 10. Bxe4 Nxe4 11. Qxe4 Bxf3 12. Nxf3 c6 13. Bf4 f5 14.
Qe6+ Kh8 15. Bxb8 Rxb8 16. Qxc6 a5 17. Rfe1 Rf6 18. Qb5 Qd6 19. Ne5 g5 20.
Nd7 Rh6 21. g3 Rd8 22. Ne5 f4 23. Nf7+ {Black resigns} 1-0
i think this kind of fork is called a " royal fork " . i’ve seen it in books a couple of times.
Wikipedia states: “The term royal fork is sometimes used to describe the situation where the king and queen are forked, and thus being the highest material gaining fork possible. Another term, the grand fork, is sometimes used to describe the situation where the king, queen, and one or both rooks are forked.”
Sounds like a record to me 
I saw that and was going to post it, too. But if you google +chess+grand+fork, you get a lot of pages about chess in Grand Forks, ND. 
I had never heard the term Grand Fork (though there’s lots of chess terms I’ve never heard of. ) But no hits that I could see in the first 10 pages of terms other than the Wikipedia and Wapedia article calling it that.
I’ve heard of Royal Fork, and heard it used in context of both a KQ fork or KQR fork. (But more on the KQR side…) My Oxford Compendium doesn’t use either term.
But it makes me wonder if anyone else has heard of the term as Grand Fork.
(And I ultimately didn’t post earlier because I got off trying to construct a database search for positions in the game above / looking for other KQRR forks and finding none.)
How long before somebody constructs a position with the ultimate non-promotions knight fork (KQRRBNN with one Knight pinned to the king on the diagonal and the other on the file)?
I’ve always referred to forking king,queen and rook as a family fork.
Ultimately, whatever the thing is called, when it happens to you, it usually hurts real bad. A fork by any other name… 
I liked the fork Petrosian had against Spassky in 1966. After a queen sac, the hungry knight would chomp down on a rook, then the queen. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106725
I once played a game against my cousin in which I forked his king, queen, a rook, and a bishop. I thought I had blundered my queen until I found it. As it was, that move wound up being the move that guaranteed the win for me.
Knight forking King, Queen and Queen would be cool. Probably hasn’t come up too much yet.
White: King: h1; Pawns: g2, h2; Queen: h3; Queen: g5
Black: Knight: f2; Bishop: f3
What good is a four-way fork, though? You’re only going to win one piece. After you take the queen, your opponent will move one of the rooks (or even capture your knight), then blooey, no more fork.
And, of course, you can’t add an eighth piece, because (a) the bishop would be on the wrong color and (b) where did the knight come from?
Bill Smythe
It just looks nice.
My cronies and I used to call a three-way fork a “triton.”
Bughouse?
I’ve done that on FICS before. Can’t remember the game offhand though… was a while ago.
As far as I know, its still called a Royal Fork, even if it attacks both rooks plus queen and king.
In Russia, forking any 3 or more pieces or pawns is called a family fork. I guess, since the Bishops are called Elephants, there is no problem with celibacy vows.
Michael Langer