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In the position below (Short vs Ponomariov 2003), White has just played Re4-f4, which is allowing the g5 pawn to attack both the rook and the bishop.

In general, what do we call a move that allows the opponent to attack two pieces without making another move?

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    In many cases, you would call such a move a "blunder" :). In general, I'm not sure there's a standard name for it, as it's not a standard motif...
    – Scounged
    Commented May 17, 2023 at 22:27
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    As it turned out, the move is considered a brilliancy. The game continued 22...Qg7 (apparently neither the B nor the R can be taken safely) 23. d6 Kg8 24. d7 Nxd7 25. Rxd7 gxf4 26. Qf3 27. Nxd7 Be3+ and Short eventually won. He ended up with an endgame of Band N against R. The game is here.
    – Wastrel
    Commented May 18, 2023 at 13:39
  • Wow. If you'd shown me this game without saying who played it, I would have guessed it's AlphaZero in Killer-Rabbit Mode or something. Commented May 18, 2023 at 21:25
  • @Scounged or a sacrifice. Commented May 20, 2023 at 14:03

4 Answers 4

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what do we call a move that allows the opponent to attack two pieces without making another move?

When the opponent makes a move which attacks two pieces at the same time with the same piece it's called a fork, so what you describe is called a self-fork.

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It is called a fork or a double attack in a normal case. A normal case is when before the opponent's turn neither piece is attacked and then by the start of your turn 2 pieces (or more) of yours are attacked. In this case, since one brought this situation upon themselves, it is called a self-fork.

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If you move a piece into a position where it can be captured "for free", you are leaving the piece en prise. White's Rf4 in this game, therefore, leaves two pieces en prise.

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Re4-f4 was played, but both the rook and bishop were hanging before the move. So I wouldn't call it a self-fork - there is not even one extra piece attacked, let alone the two you are getting in a regular fork.

I don't know what I would call it though. Misdirection? Overload? Tempo something? Tal attack? :D It is probably rare enough it doesn't have a name.

Note that there are possible self-fork moves - where a single move adds 2 extra pieces to be attacked. For example: a white pawn was on e4 and moves to e5, with pieces on f4, f3 and d3. Black has a rook on a4, bishop on c6 and queen on g6.

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  • Maybe I'm just missing something because I'm inexperienced, but wouldn't the Queen be defending the rook when it was on e4? I don't think it was hanging before this. Commented May 19, 2023 at 17:19
  • @TwistedCode Yeah, it wasn't a free piece, but it was attacked by a knight which is a less valuable piece (in general). I believe such pieces are also said to be hanging (if I am wrong, I will correct the above, replacing "hanging" with attacked) Commented May 20, 2023 at 17:36

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