♟ Chess Opening Scores

Openings › Mate in one › September 2026 › Exercise 4 of 5

Mate in one: Black to move (exercise m1-3e1d77a430)

Black to move and mate in one. In this position Black can give checkmate with one move. The position comes from a rated Lichess game of September 2026.

Last move: 52.Kh5 (White's king from h4 to h5); 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 rook move or a pawn move.

Hint 2: which square?

A mating move goes to h3 or g6.

Show the solution

Two moves give checkmate:

  1. Rh3# (a3 to h3). After this move, the black rook on h3 gives check to the white king on h5, and White has no legal move: checkmate. The white king on h5 has no safe square to go to (g4, g5, g6, h4 and h6). Its own pawn on g4 stands in the way. g6 is covered by the black pawn on h7. h4 is covered by the black bishop on g5 and the black rook on h3. h6 is covered by the black bishop on g5, the black pawn on g7 and the black rook on h3. The king may not take the black bishop on g5: the black pawn on f6 guards g5. No white piece can capture the black rook on h3. No white piece can move to h4 to block the check.
  2. g6# (g7 to g6). After this move, the black pawn on g6 gives check to the white king on h5, and White has no legal move: checkmate. The white king on h5 has no safe square to go to (g4, g5, g6, h4 and h6). Its own pawn on g4 stands in the way. h4 is covered by the black bishop on g5. h6 is covered by the black bishop on g5. The king may not take the black bishop on g5: the black pawn on f6 guards g5. The black pawn on g6 cannot be captured: the king may not take it, as the black pawn on h7 guards g6. The black pawn on g6 stands right next to the king, so nothing can be put in between.

Our code tried every legal move of Black 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 September 2026. From a game that began with the Scandinavian Defense. In that game Black 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.