Mate in 2: rook to d8 (d7·4)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1649 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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, rook d7, knight g6, pawn a2 h3 g4 f5.
Black: king g8, rook c2 f2, pawn h6 a7 g7.
7 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (12 against 13; 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 30, with 25 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
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. Rd8+ Kf7 31. Rf8#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d8 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to f8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kf7, then Rf8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 30. Rd8+ — rook to d8 with check
- Kf7 — king to f7
- 31. Rf8# — rook to f8 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Hook mate
Rook, knight and pawn form a hook the king cannot escape.
The hook mate is a three-piece construction: the rook mates, the knight guards the rook, and a pawn guards the knight. The rook strikes the king at close range along a line, the knight stands diagonally nearby stealing the escape squares, and the pawn anchors the chain. The pattern usually appears near the edge after a rook invasion. Build it link by link — first plant the knight under pawn protection, then crash in with the rook.
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 013
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