Mate in 2: fork on f2 (c5)
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The tactical motive
Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once — they can't both be saved.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1559 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A fork is one piece attacking two targets at once. Look for a knight, pawn or queen move that lands where it hits the king (or a bigger piece) and a second undefended unit on the same turn — the opponent can save only one.
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 d1, rook a1 e1, bishop d8, knight h2 c3, pawn b2 c2 f2 g2 a3 h3.
Black: king g8, rook a8 f8, bishop c4 c5, knight e4, pawn a5 e5 d6 h6 b7 c7 f7 g7.
13 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 14.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 7 points of material (34 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 g1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 14, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
14... Bxf2+ 15. Kh1 Ng3#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to f2 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: knight to g3 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kh1, then Ng3# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 14… Bxf2+ — bishop to f2 (capture) with check
- 15. Kh1 — king to h1
- Ng3# — knight to g3 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Knight mate
The knight lands the killing blow from its unique angle.
In a knight mate the final blow comes from the knight — the only piece whose check can never be blocked. That makes it lethal against a cramped king: only a king move or capturing the knight itself can help. The sign: the squares around the king are occupied or covered, and there is a hop from which the knight checks while staying untouchable. Bring the knight over early — it is slower than the long-range pieces, but its strike cannot be parried.
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 011
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