Mate in 2: knight to d5 (c3)
c9-26235naming 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 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, rook a1 h8, bishop f2 c4, knight c3 h7, pawn a2 b2 d4 g4.
Black: king e7, queen c8, rook a8, bishop d7 d8, knight g7 g8, pawn f5 d6 a7 f7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (26 against 30; 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 22, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
22. Nd5+ Ke6 23. Re1#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to d5 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Spot on — rook to e1 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Ke6, then Re1# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 22. Nd5+ — knight to d5 with check
- Ke6 — king to e6
- 23. Re1# — rook to e1 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 #425.
SP-425 · RampartGuard — A wing king (b/g) with no knight on the a- or h-file.
The king starts on g1, the rooks on a1 and h1, the queen on c1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on d1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h5 and a5 once the e- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 729.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 14 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +40 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #425Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-425
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