Mate in 2: queen to e3 (c5)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1857 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black 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 e1, queen d7, bishop g2, knight a7, pawn h2 g3.
Black: king h8, queen c5, bishop c4, pawn g7 h7.
6 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (17 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 e1, the black king on h8.
It is Black to move on move 35, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c, d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
35... Qe3+ 36. Kd1 Bb3#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to e3 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: bishop to b3 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kd1, then Bb3# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 35… Qe3+ — queen to e3 with check
- 36. Kd1 — king to d1
- Bb3# — bishop to b3 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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).
Pack 013
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