Mate in 1: queen to d5 (e5)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 1: find the move after which the enemy king has no escape.
Difficulty 1914 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 f2, queen e5, rook e1, bishop d2 d3, pawn a2 g2 h2 f5.
Black: king d7, queen h5, rook a8 f8, bishop c8, knight c6, pawn d4 g4 h6 a7 b7 c7.
9 white and 12 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 (24 against 31; 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 d7.
It is White to move on move 24, with 54 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, c, d.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Qd5#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to d5 keeps the pressure (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 1.
Move by move
- 24. Qd5# — queen to d5 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Ladder mate
Two heavy pieces climb line by line, cutting off every retreat.
The ladder mate uses two heavy pieces climbing rung by rung: one cuts the king off along a line, the other checks on the next line, driving him toward the edge. It is the classic two-rook technique — check, the king retreats one rank, the other rook checks, until mate on the last rank. The only danger is the king creeping close enough to attack one of your rooks. If it does, simply slide that rook to the far side of the same line.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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