Mate in 2: bishop to d6 (b4)
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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 1220 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 e2, rook b2 c6, bishop b4, pawn f2 g2 h2 b3 e3 d4.
Black: king b8, queen g7, pawn g3 e5 h5 b6 b7 f7.
11 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 13 points of material (28 against 15; 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 b8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 49 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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
26. Bd6+ Ka7 27. Ra2#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to d6 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Spot on — rook to a2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Ka7, then Ra2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 26. Bd6+ — bishop to d6 with check
- Ka7 — king to a7
- 27. Ra2# — rook to a2 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #728.
SP-728 · BastionGuard — A c- or f-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on c1, the rooks on a1 and h1, the queen on f1.
The king already stands on c1, so castling long moves only the rook, from a1 to d1.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
Every pawn on the second rank is defended from the very first move.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 429.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 61 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +23 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #728Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-728
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