Mate in 2: rook to e5
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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 1450 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 d1, queen g7, rook f5, bishop h5, pawn e2 g3 c5 b7.
Black: king e6, queen a7, rook h6, bishop c7 g8, pawn d5.
8 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 21 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on d1, the black king on e6.
It is White to move on move 36, with 45 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 1. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
Black 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
36. Re5+ Bxe5 37. Bg4#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e5 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: bishop to g4 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Bxe5, then Bg4# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 36. Re5+ — rook to e5 with check
- Bxe5 — bishop to e5 (capture)
- 37. Bg4# — bishop to g4 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.
Sacrifice attack
Give up material to unleash a decisive attack.
A sacrificial attack gives up material on purpose to rip the king's shelter open and launch a decisive assault. The sac is sound when you get concrete assets in return: open lines to the king, tempi, pieces ready to pour in. The signs: a poorly sheltered king, your forces aimed at its home, defenders stranded far away. The iron rule is to calculate, not hope — once the material is gone, there is no way back.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #799.
SP-799 · BastionGuard — The king starts one file off-centre, on c or f, with neither knight in a corner.
The king starts on c1, the rooks on a1 and e1, the queen on b1.
The king already stands on c1, so castling long moves only the rook, from a1 to d1.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
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 160.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 7 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +47 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #799Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 011 · SP-799
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