Mate in 2: pawn to h6 (h5·4)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1728 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 d3, queen g5, rook d2, pawn c2 b3 f3 e4 g4 h5.
Black: king g7, queen g1, rook d8 h8, pawn d5 a6 c6 g6 b7 f7 h7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 6 points of material (20 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 d3, the black king on g7.
It is White to move on move 26, with 26 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: a, d.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26. h6+ Kg8 27. Qxd8#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to h6 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to d8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kg8, then Qxd8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 26. h6+ — pawn to h6 with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 27. Qxd8# — queen to d8 (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.
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.
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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