♟ Chess Opening Scores

Openings › Mate in one › November 2025 › Exercise 2 of 4

Mate in one: White to move (exercise m1-2be19a0cb6)

White to move and mate in one. In this position White can give checkmate with one move. The position comes from a rated Lichess game of November 2025.

Last move: 27…Be8 (Black's bishop from b5 to e8); its two squares are marked on the board.

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Pick a piece, then its square. Keyboard: Tab to the board, arrow keys to move, Enter or Space to pick.

Hint 1: which piece?

Look for a queen move or a rook move.

Hint 2: which square?

A mating move goes to e8 or c7.

Show the solution

Two moves give checkmate:

  1. Rxe8# (f8 to e8). After this move, the white rook on e8 gives check to the black king on b8, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on b8 has no safe square to go to (a7, a8, b7, c7 and c8). Its own rook on a8, pawn on b7 and queen on c7 stand in the way. a7 is covered by the white bishop on b6. c8 is covered by the white rook on e8. No black piece can capture the white rook on e8. The check cannot be blocked on c8 or d8: the black queen on c7 is pinned to its king by the white queen on h2.
  2. Qxc7# (h2 to c7). After this move, the white queen on c7 gives check to the black king on b8, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on b8 has no safe square to go to (a7, a8, b7, c7 and c8). Its own rook on a8 and pawn on b7 stand in the way. a7 is covered by the white bishop on b6. c8 is covered by the white queen on c7. The white queen on c7 cannot be captured: the king may not take it, as the white bishop on b6 guards c7. The white queen on c7 stands right next to the king, so nothing can be put in between.

Our code tried every legal move of White in this position: these are the only moves that give checkmate.

The position as text

Where this exercise comes from

The position comes from a rated game in our sample of the Lichess open database (CC0 1.0), from the monthly file of November 2025. From a game that began with the London System. In that game White gave checkmate with the next move. We show no player names and no link to the game. Our code tried every legal move of the position and lists every move that gives checkmate; the list, the hints and the explanations are checked again each time the site is built. How the exercises are chosen: Mate in one and How it works.