Mate in 2: rook to e8 (f8·3)
c9-27509naming 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 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 f1, rook g3 f8, bishop b2, knight f2 d5, pawn d2 b4 f4.
Black: king d8, rook h5 c6, bishop c5, knight f7 e8, pawn a4 b5 d7 e7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 41.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (22 against 23; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on d8.
It is White to move on move 41, with 47 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, e.
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
41. Rxe8+ Kxe8 42. Rg8#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e8 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to g8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kxe8, then Rg8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 41. Rxe8+ — rook to e8 (capture) with check
- Kxe8 — king to e8 (capture)
- 42. Rg8# — rook to g8 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Back-rank mate
The king is locked behind its own pawns — a heavy piece strikes the last rank.
The back-rank mate strikes a king locked behind its own unmoved pawns when a rook or queen crashes onto the last rank. The signs: no escape hole in front of the king, and the back rank guarded by a single piece or by nobody at all. Often that lone guard is deflected or traded off first, and only then comes the invasion. In your own games, make luft in time — one pawn move prevents a sudden catastrophe.
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 #752.
SP-752 · ThroneGuard — The king starts in the middle of the back rank, on d or e, and neither knight begins in a corner.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and g1, the queen on h1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
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: f2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 399.
The engine's main line opens with g4.
Morozov Balance Index: 8 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +45 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #752Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 011 · SP-752
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