Mate in 2: pawn to g6 (g5·2)
c9-08948naming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1630 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
In Chess960 the pieces start on unfamiliar squares, so tactics appear earlier and from unusual angles. Do not trust classical patterns — read the actual lines of the bishops, the rooks and the queen from where they really stand in this position.
Mate in two usually opens with a forcing move — a check, a capture or an unstoppable threat — that strips the king of squares or defenders, so the follow-up mate becomes unavoidable. Look for the first move that leaves the opponent only losing replies.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen d7, rook h1, bishop f1 b2, pawn a2 g2 b4 c4 g5 h5.
Black: king f8, queen a8, rook h8, bishop g7, knight e3 e8, pawn f4 d6 a7 b7.
11 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (26 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on f8.
It is White to move on move 21, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
21. g6 Qd8 22. Qf7#
Why it works
- Sensible development: pawn to g6.
- Spot on — queen to f7 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Qd8, then Qf7# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 21. g6 — pawn to g6
- Qd8 — queen to d8
- 22. Qf7# — queen to f7 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
Mate in 2
A forced checkmate in two moves.
Mate in two: your move, any reply, then the mating blow. Start with the most forcing first moves — checks and sacrifices that shrink the opponent's options to almost nothing. Against every single reply you must have a mate ready, so check them all without exception. The common failure is analyzing the pretty defense and forgetting the boring one.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #102.
SP-102 · RampartGuard — King on the wing (b/g) with both knights on inner files.
The king starts on g1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on a1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on c1 and f1; their long diagonals reach h6 and a6 once the d- and e-pawns step aside.
The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 854.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 98 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: 0 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
In 50 self-play games White scored 53.0% (95% CI 39.5–66.1%).
Explore position #102Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-102
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