Mate in 2: queen to e8 (h5·6)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1398 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 b1, queen h5, rook d1 f1, pawn a2 b2 c2 h2 g5 d7.
Black: king g8, queen c7, rook d8, bishop b7, knight e7, pawn b5 c5 f5 a6 e6 g7 h7.
10 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (25 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 29, with 35 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: e, f.
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
29. Qe8+ Rxe8 30. dxe8=Q#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e8 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: pawn to e8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Rxe8, then dxe8=Q# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 29. Qe8+ — queen to e8 with check
- Rxe8 — rook to e8 (capture)
- 30. dxe8=Q# — pawn to e8 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Promotion mate
The pawn promotes — and the new piece mates on the spot.
In a promotion mate the pawn takes its final step and the newborn piece mates on the spot. Sometimes the hero is a knight rather than a queen — it checks from the promotion square in a way no queen can. The sign: the enemy king lingers near the promotion square while your pieces already control its escape routes. When counting pawn races, always check whether the promotion itself is mate — that gains you a full tempo in the evaluation.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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