Mate in 1: queen to f1 (h3·3)
li-034Ybnaming 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 1101 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 f1, bishop b2, knight e1 e4, pawn f2 h2 a3 e3 g3 b4 d4 d5.
Black: king g8, queen h3, rook a8 f8, bishop e2 d6, knight d7, pawn a5 c6 c7 f7 g7 h7.
15 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 17.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (36 against 34; 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 g8.
It is Black to move on move 17, with 51 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 8 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for Black: b, d, e.
Black 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
17... Qxf1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f1 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 17… Qxf1# — queen to f1 (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 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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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