Mate in 2: queen to g4 (a4)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1193 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 g1, queen a4, rook c1 f1, bishop b2, knight h5, pawn d2 f2 a3 b3 g3 h4.
Black: king g8, queen b7, rook c8 f8, bishop e7, knight d3, pawn c5 e5 a6 d6 f6 f7 h7.
12 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (31 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 g8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, 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
23. Qg4+ Kh8 24. Qg7#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g4 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to g7 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kh8, then Qg7# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 23. Qg4+ — queen to g4 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 24. Qg7# — queen to g7 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 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.
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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