Mate in 2: deflection on h1
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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 1116 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 f1, queen d1, rook a1 e1, bishop d2 f5, pawn a2 b2 c2 g2 d3 f4.
Black: king g8, queen h2, rook a8, bishop c8, knight g4, pawn d4 h6 a7 b7 c7 g7.
12 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 5 points of material (31 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 23, with 28 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
23... Qh1+ 24. Ke2 Qxg2#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h1 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to g2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Ke2, then Qxg2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 23… Qh1+ — queen to h1 with check
- 24. Ke2 — king to e2
- Qxg2# — queen to g2 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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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