Mate in 2: deflection on g4
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1033 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 h3, rook b8, pawn h2 g3 b4 c7.
Black: king g6, rook a2, pawn g5 h5 a6.
6 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 40.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (9 against 8; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h3, the black king on g6.
It is Black to move on move 40, with 20 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c.
The Black king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
40... g4+ 41. Kh4 Rxh2#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to g4 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to h2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kh4, then Rxh2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 40… g4+ — pawn to g4 with check
- 41. Kh4 — king to h4
- Rxh2# — rook to h2 (capture) 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.
Rook endgame
The most common endgame — activity decides everything.
The rook endgame is the most common of all: rooks and pawns on the board. Its first law is activity — a rook behind a passed pawn beats a rook passively babysitting one. The sign of a correct plan is that your rook is attacking something, not guarding something. The typical error is locking your rook into defense: it is often better to give up a pawn and keep your rook and king active.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 006
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