Mate in 1: knight to f7 (e5·3)
li-04kuQnaming 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 1065 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White 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 f2, rook g7, knight e5 e6, pawn c4.
Black: king h8, rook b3 d8, bishop a8, knight f6, pawn e4 b6 h7.
5 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 38.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (12 against 19; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 38, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 1 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, d, f, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, e, h.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
38. Nf7#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f7 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 38. Nf7# — knight to f7 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.
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.
Corner mate
Driven into the corner, the king runs out of squares.
The corner mate catches a king driven into the corner, where it has only three neighboring squares — all of them taken away or blocked. The corner is the worst home for a king, because the attacker needs to control the fewest squares there. Herd the king toward the corner with checks and never let it slip back toward the center. Cut off the escape routes before the final check, and the mate practically assembles itself.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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