Mate in 2: knight to d6 (b5·3)
c9-18846naming 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 1640 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, rook a8, bishop e3 f3, knight b5, pawn b2 g2 b4 h4 e5 g5.
Black: king e7, pawn h5 c6 g6 d7.
11 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 16 points of material (20 against 4; 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 e7.
It is White to move on move 32, with 43 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): a, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, d.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
32. Nd6 c5 33. Re8#
Why it works
- Sensible development: knight to d6.
- Spot on — rook to e8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead c5, then Re8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 32. Nd6 — knight to d6
- c5 — pawn to c5
- 33. Re8# — rook to e8 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Hook mate
Rook, knight and pawn form a hook the king cannot escape.
The hook mate is a three-piece construction: the rook mates, the knight guards the rook, and a pawn guards the knight. The rook strikes the king at close range along a line, the knight stands diagonally nearby stealing the escape squares, and the pawn anchors the chain. The pattern usually appears near the edge after a rook invasion. Build it link by link — first plant the knight under pawn protection, then crash in with the rook.
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 #445.
SP-445 · BastionGuard — The king starts one file off-centre, on c or f, with neither knight in a corner.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on a1 and h1, the queen on e1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
The bishops stand on d1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h5 and a7 once the e- and f-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: b2.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 712.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 93 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +11 centipawns for White (depth 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #445Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 013 · SP-445
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