Mate in 2: knight to f3 (g5·2)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1147 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 g1, queen d3, rook a1 f1, bishop e1, knight b3 f3, pawn f2 g2 h2 a3 e3 d4 b5.
Black: king g8, queen d6, rook a8 f8, bishop c7, knight g5 b8, pawn d5 b6 e6 a7 f7 g7 h7.
14 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 35 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 17, with 30 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
17... Nxf3+ 18. gxf3 Qxh2#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f3 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to h2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead gxf3, then Qxh2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 17… Nxf3+ — knight to f3 (capture) with check
- 18. gxf3 — pawn to f3 (capture)
- Qxh2# — queen to h2 (capture) 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 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.
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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