Standard procedure starts with an inspection of any checks you can give. One of them is Nc4. On a board so open you might be tempted merely to conclude that the king then gets away, but don’t be satisfied so easily; try to figure out where it will go. It’s easy here because many of its apparent flight squares are unavailable (e.g., d4, d5, or e6). Indeed, Black has only two possibilities: Ke4 or Kf5. Now look for your next check—or, since you are playing with your knight, look for a fork. If Black plays Ke4, you have Nd2+; if he plays Kf5, you have Ne3+. In either event you win the queen next move. The important lesson is to observe how improbable a knight fork might have seemed in the original diagram given the distance of the knight from Black’s queen. It turns out that two jumps of the knight can cover a lot of ground; if the first of its moves requires a forced response from your opponent, you may end up with a fork on the other half of the board from where you began.