Mate in 2: pawn to f6 (f5·2)
c9-26128naming 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 1280 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 h1, queen h7, rook b1 f1, knight g5, pawn a2 g2 h2 f5.
Black: king f8, queen a5, rook a8, knight g7, pawn d3 c4 g4 b5 d7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (26 against 22; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on f8.
It is White to move on move 30, with 35 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, c, d.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30. f6 Qa3 31. Qh8#
Why it works
- Sensible development: pawn to f6.
- Spot on — queen to h8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Qa3, then Qh8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 30. f6 — pawn to f6
- Qa3 — queen to a3
- 31. Qh8# — queen to h8 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.
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
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 #610.
SP-610 · ThroneScout — A knight starts on the edge (a/h) and the king sits centrally on d or e; the mirror twin stays in this family too.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on b1 and g1, the queen on d1.
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.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 247.
The engine's main line opens with e3.
Morozov Balance Index: 80 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +17 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #610Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 009 · SP-610
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