Mate in 2: deflection on d1
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1675 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 a1, queen e2, rook h7, bishop e5, pawn a2 e4 f4 g5.
Black: king f7, queen a4, rook d8, knight g7, pawn b3 b4 e6 a7.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 21 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on a1, the black king on f7.
It is Black to move on move 30, with 31 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f, g.
The Black king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30... Rd1+ 31. Qxd1 Qxa2#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d1 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to a2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Qxd1, then Qxa2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 30… Rd1+ — rook to d1 with check
- 31. Qxd1 — queen to d1 (capture)
- Qxa2# — queen to a2 (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 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 013
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