Mate in 2: rook to d8 (d7·5)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1996 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 f2, rook a1 d7, bishop c4, knight c7, pawn b2 c2 h3 a4 d6.
Black: king f8, rook a7 h8, bishop c6 g7, knight d2 b8, pawn c5 g5 a6 h6 b7 f7.
10 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (21 against 28; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on f8.
It is White to move on move 24, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, g.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
24. Rd8+ Be8 25. Rxe8#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d8 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: rook to e8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Be8, then Rxe8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 24. Rd8+ — rook to d8 with check
- Be8 — bishop to e8
- 25. Rxe8# — rook to e8 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Hook mate
Rook, knight and pawn form a hook the king cannot escape.
The hook mate is a three-piece construction: the rook mates, the knight guards the rook, and a pawn guards the knight. The rook strikes the king at close range along a line, the knight stands diagonally nearby stealing the escape squares, and the pawn anchors the chain. The pattern usually appears near the edge after a rook invasion. Build it link by link — first plant the knight under pawn protection, then crash in with the rook.
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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