Mate in 2: queen to e8 (h5·7)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1736 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 h5, rook f2, knight g5, pawn d4.
Black: king h8, queen b4, rook c7, bishop h6, pawn b3 d5 b6 e6 g7.
5 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 39.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (18 against 22; 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 h8.
It is White to move on move 39, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 1 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c, f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, e, g.
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
39. Qe8+ Qf8 40. Rxf8#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e8 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Spot on — rook to f8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Qf8, then Rxf8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 39. Qe8+ — queen to e8 with check
- Qf8 — queen to f8
- 40. Rxf8# — rook to f8 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Corner mate
Driven into the corner, the king runs out of squares.
The corner mate catches a king driven into the corner, where it has only three neighboring squares — all of them taken away or blocked. The corner is the worst home for a king, because the attacker needs to control the fewest squares there. Herd the king toward the corner with checks and never let it slip back toward the center. Cut off the escape routes before the final check, and the mate practically assembles 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.
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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