Mate in 1: discovered attack on d2
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 1790 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 g1, queen d1, rook a1 f1, bishop c1, pawn a2 b2 f2 h2 c4.
Black: king d7, queen f3, rook d8 g8, bishop g5, pawn c6 e6 b7 f7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 27 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on d7.
It is Black to move on move 24, with 8 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: a.
The Black king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24... Bd2#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to d2 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 24… Bd2# — bishop to d2 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Discovered mate
A piece steps aside — and the one behind it delivers mate.
In a discovered mate the piece that moves is not the one that mates — the long-range piece behind it delivers the blow. The moving piece is completely free: it can land anywhere, ideally stealing the king's last squares or guarding key points. Look for your rook, bishop or queen lined up with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. When choosing the unveiling move, remember its second job — shutting the king's escape door.
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.
Blocking save
Block the check with tempo — and turn the game around.
The blocking save: you interpose a piece against the check — not passively, but with tempo, so the blocker creates a threat of its own. Such a block turns defense into attack. Whenever you are checked, compare all three replies — capture, move the king, interpose — and among the interpositions hunt for the one that counterattacks. The mistake is automatically stepping aside with the king when an active block would have turned the game around.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
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