♟ Chess Opening Scores

Openings › Mate in one › March 2026 › Exercise 4 of 4

Mate in one: Black to move (exercise m1-45b21c408a)

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 March 2026.

Last move: 36.Rxg6 (White's rook from g2 to g6, capturing); 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 pawn move.

Hint 2: which square?

The mating move goes to f2.

Show the solution

One move gives checkmate:

  1. f2# (f3 to f2). After this move, the black pawn on f2 gives check to the white king on g1, and White has no legal move: checkmate. The white king on g1 has no safe square to go to (f1, f2, g2, h1 and h2). f1 is covered by the black queen on h3. g2 is covered by the black queen on h3. h1 is covered by the black queen on h3. h2 is covered by the black queen on h3. The black pawn on f2 cannot be captured: the king may not take it, as the black pawn on e3 guards f2. The black pawn on f2 stands right next to the king, so nothing can be put in between.

Our code tried every legal move of Black in this position: this is the only move that gives 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 March 2026. 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.