Mate in 1: queen to g7 (f6)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 843 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
White 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 h1, queen f6, rook a1 f1, knight e6, pawn a2 g2 h2 c4.
Black: king g8, queen e3, rook c6 f8, knight e5, pawn b6 g6 a7 f7 h7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (26 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 24, with 41 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): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, f.
The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Qg7#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g7 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 24. Qg7# — queen to g7 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Ladder mate
Two heavy pieces climb line by line, cutting off every retreat.
The ladder mate uses two heavy pieces climbing rung by rung: one cuts the king off along a line, the other checks on the next line, driving him toward the edge. It is the classic two-rook technique — check, the king retreats one rank, the other rook checks, until mate on the last rank. The only danger is the king creeping close enough to attack one of your rooks. If it does, simply slide that rook to the far side of the same line.
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 004
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