Mate in 2: deflection on h3 (g5)
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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 1859 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 g1, queen a6, rook f1 g2, pawn h2 d3 a4 g7.
Black: king g8, queen d5, rook f8, bishop d6, knight g5, pawn d4 c5.
8 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 47.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (23 against 22; 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 Black to move on move 47, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a, g, h.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
47... Nh3+ 48. Kh1 Rxf1#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to h3 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to f1 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kh1, then Rxf1# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 47… Nh3+ — knight to h3 with check
- 48. Kh1 — king to h1
- Rxf1# — rook to f1 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Back-rank mate
The king is locked behind its own pawns — a heavy piece strikes the last rank.
The back-rank mate strikes a king locked behind its own unmoved pawns when a rook or queen crashes onto the last rank. The signs: no escape hole in front of the king, and the back rank guarded by a single piece or by nobody at all. Often that lone guard is deflected or traded off first, and only then comes the invasion. In your own games, make luft in time — one pawn move prevents a sudden catastrophe.
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.
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 013
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