Mate in 2: knight to h6 (f7·2)
li-02IiDnaming 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 1232 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 h1, rook f1 e4, bishop c1, knight f7, pawn b2 g2 h2 c3.
Black: king g8, queen c6, rook a8 h8, bishop a3, knight d5, pawn e5 a6 g6 h7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 9 points of material (20 against 29; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 30, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, e.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30. Nh6+ Kg7 31. Rf7#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to h6 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to f7 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kg7, then Rf7# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 30. Nh6+ — knight to h6 with check
- Kg7 — king to g7
- 31. Rf7# — rook to f7 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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