Mate in 2: queen to h2 (h4·4)
li-01hmSnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1202 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black 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 g2, queen a6, rook b1 c1, bishop e2 f8, knight d4, pawn f2 a3 e3.
Black: king g8, queen h4, rook a8, bishop e5, pawn e4 d5 a7 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 8 points of material (31 against 23; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 26, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26... Qh2+ 27. Kf1 Qh1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h2 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to h1 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kf1, then Qh1# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 26… Qh2+ — queen to h2 with check
- 27. Kf1 — king to f1
- Qh1# — queen to h1 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 008
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