Mate in 1: queen to h2 (h5·4)
li-01oZWnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 1131 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 c2, rook a1 e1, bishop c1 f1, knight d2 c6, pawn a2 b2 f2 c3 d4.
Black: king c8, queen h5, rook d8 h8, bishop d6, knight e7, pawn d5 g5 f6 a7 b7 c7 h7.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 15.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (36 against 32; 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 c8.
It is Black to move on move 15, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
15... Qh2#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h2 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 15… 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.
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 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 007
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