Mate in 1: queen to h1 (h2·2)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 992 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
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 f1, queen d6, rook a1, bishop b2, knight b5, pawn a2 f2 g2 h3.
Black: king g8, queen h2, rook e8, knight f6, pawn d5 a7 f7 g7 h7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (24 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 f1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 21, with 32 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
21... Qh1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to h1 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 21… Qh1# — queen to h1 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.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 006
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