Mate in 2: king to g4
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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 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 g3, rook h1 h7, pawn c3 f3 e5.
Black: king g6, rook b3 b8, pawn f4 g5 b6 e6.
6 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 39.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (13 against 14; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g3, the black king on g6.
It is White to move on move 39, with 5 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, g.
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
39. Kg4 b5 40. R1h6#
Why it works
- Great move! king to g4 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Spot on — rook to h6 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead b5, then R1h6# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 39. Kg4 — king to g4
- b5 — pawn to b5
- 40. R1h6# — rook to h6 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Ladder mate
Two heavy pieces climb line by line, cutting off every retreat.
The ladder mate uses two heavy pieces climbing rung by rung: one cuts the king off along a line, the other checks on the next line, driving him toward the edge. It is the classic two-rook technique — check, the king retreats one rank, the other rook checks, until mate on the last rank. The only danger is the king creeping close enough to attack one of your rooks. If it does, simply slide that rook to the far side of the same line.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
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.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #77.
SP-77 · ThroneScout — King in the middle of the rank, with a knight already committed to the corner.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on f1.
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.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: a2, b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 888.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 34 of 100 — class C — noticeable edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +31 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #77Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 009 · SP-77
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