Mate in 1: queen to h2 (h4·3)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 940 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A mate in one hides among forcing checks. Run through every check you can give: does it cover all the king's escape squares, is the checking piece safe or supported, and can nothing block or capture it? If yes, that is the mate.
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 d2, rook b1 f1, bishop g2, knight g3, pawn a2 f2 d3 e3 c4 b5.
Black: king g7, queen h4, rook b8 e8, knight g4, pawn e5 h5 c6 d6 g6 a7 b7 f7.
12 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (31 against 30; 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 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in.
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
23... Qh2#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h2 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 23… Qh2# — queen to h2 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
Mate in 1
Checkmate in a single move — find it.
Mate in one: the combination is over, only the final precise shot remains. The method is simple — list every check you have and test the three escapes against each: king moves, blocks, and capturing the checker. If none of them works, it is mate. The classic blunder is falling in love with the first check you see and missing the one escape hatch.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 005
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