Mate in 2: queen to d3 (b5)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1855 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 d1, queen c7, rook h2, bishop h3, pawn a2 b2 c3 h4 g5 f6.
Black: king g8, queen b5, rook e4, bishop h8, pawn h5 b6 g6 a7 f7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (23 against 22; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27... Qd3+ 28. Rd2 Qb1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to d3 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to b1 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Rd2, then Qb1# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 27… Qd3+ — queen to d3 with check
- 28. Rd2 — rook to d2
- Qb1# — queen to b1 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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