Mate in 2: bishop to f4 (c1)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1317 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 f3, bishop c1 e4, knight d3, pawn h2 b3 c4 g5.
Black: king d6, rook a2, bishop d7 e7, pawn d4 c5 f5 c7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 38.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (13 against 16; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f3, the black king on d6.
It is White to move on move 38, with 23 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, f.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
38. Bf4+ Ke6 39. Bd5#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to f4 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: bishop to d5 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Ke6, then Bd5# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 38. Bf4+ — bishop to f4 with check
- Ke6 — king to e6
- 39. Bd5# — bishop to d5 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Boden's mate
Two bishops cross their diagonals over a king blocked by its own pieces.
Boden's mate crosses two bishop diagonals over a king blocked by its own pieces. The classic victim has castled on the queenside: its own rook and pawns have stolen the escape squares, and the bishops slash crosswise. The trigger is usually a queen sacrifice that blasts open the second diagonal. Whenever the enemy king is boxed in by its friends, ask whether both of your bishops can reach it on crossing diagonals.
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 009
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