Figure 2.1.10.7[White to move]

You might start by seeing that White has an almost-fork with Ne6. To make it work, he would need to nudge Black’s king over to g7. Now play with your forcing moves. You might start by examining every check. The queen has several—Qxh6, Qh8, Qg8, Qg7, Qf7, and Qe7. All of them lose the queen and thus fail to create a profitable fork even in cases where the king does go to g7. But there is one more check: Bxg6. How would Black respond? With KxB. Still no fork would be possible, but once the king moves you naturally reconsider the checks you can give and their consequences. (As you do it, bear in mind that the knight on d4 already can attack Black’s queen from e6, and so will have a fork if the king can be forced onto g5 or g7; this is an example of working back and forth between ideas based on pattern recognition and experiments with checks.) The interesting new check White has is Qf5—interesting because the queen attacks the king and is protected by the knight. Black’s only legal reply is Kg7. Again, with a move by the king you reevaluate your tactical options. Now the king and queen sit on forkable squares; Ne6+ forks and wins the queen.

This position is a bit tricky because it takes a moment to see that White’s key move (2. Qf5) forces Black’s king to g7. Learning to see where the king can and can’t go when it’s checked takes a little practice.