Mate in 2: pawn to a4 (a2)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1893 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 c2, knight f3, pawn a2 f2 c3 d4 e5 h5.
Black: king c4, rook h7, knight g8, pawn a5 d5 e6 h6 b7 f7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (9 against 14; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c2, the black king on c4.
It is White to move on move 29, with 13 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29. a4 b6 30. Nd2#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to a4 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: knight to d2 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead b6, then Nd2# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 29. a4 — pawn to a4
- b6 — pawn to b6
- 30. Nd2# — knight to d2 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.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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