Mate in 1: rook to c2
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The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 1330 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 c3, rook a1 h1, bishop a3 b5, knight b1 c6, pawn g2 h2 b3 a4 d4.
Black: king g8, rook f2 a5, bishop e7 c8, knight b4, pawn d5 b6 e6 b7 g7 h7.
12 white and 12 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 (27 against 25; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c3, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 17, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a.
The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
17... Rc2#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to c2 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 17… Rc2# — rook to c2 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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 010
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