Mate in 2: queen to g3 (h3·2)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1591 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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, queen e3, rook f1 f2, knight c3, pawn a2 b2 c2 h2 g3 e4 d5.
Black: king g7, queen h3, rook h5 e7, bishop f3, pawn f6 g6 c7 h7.
12 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (29 against 26; 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 g7.
It is Black to move on move 23, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 4. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: a, b, d, e.
The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23... Qxg3+ 24. hxg3 Rh1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g3 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to h1 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead hxg3, then Rh1# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 23… Qxg3+ — queen to g3 (capture) with check
- 24. hxg3 — pawn to g3 (capture)
- Rh1# — rook to h1 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.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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