Mate in 2: rook to h2
li-02OEeThe tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 944 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
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, rook d1 f1, bishop b3 f6, knight e4, pawn b2 c2 f2 h2 a4 e5 d6.
Black: king g8, rook h7 a8, bishop f4, knight d4, pawn b4 a5 e6 g6 d7 f7.
13 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 4 points of material (26 against 22; 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 31, with 31 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: c, h.
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
31... Rxh2+ 32. Kg1 Nf3#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h2 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Spot on — knight to f3 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kg1, then Nf3# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 31… Rxh2+ — rook to h2 (capture) with check
- 32. Kg1 — king to g1
- Nf3# — knight to f3 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Knight mate
The knight lands the killing blow from its unique angle.
In a knight mate the final blow comes from the knight — the only piece whose check can never be blocked. That makes it lethal against a cramped king: only a king move or capturing the knight itself can help. The sign: the squares around the king are occupied or covered, and there is a hop from which the knight checks while staying untouchable. Bring the knight over early — it is slower than the long-range pieces, but its strike cannot be parried.
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 005
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