Mate in 2: queen to h7 (d3·3)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 822 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
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 d3, rook e1, bishop c2, pawn a2 b2 f2 g2 h2 c3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen d6, rook a8, bishop d5, knight g4, pawn c6 a7 b7 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (24 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. Qxh7+ Kf8 24. Qh8#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h7 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to h8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kf8, then Qh8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 23. Qxh7+ — queen to h7 (capture) with check
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 24. Qh8# — queen to h8 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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 004
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