♟ Chess Opening Scores

Openings › Mate in one › March 2026 › Exercise 3 of 4

Mate in one: White to move (exercise m1-4d0e3812be)

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 March 2026.

Last move: 27…Ng5 (Black's knight from f7 to g5); its two squares are marked on the board.

1abcdefgh2345678

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 g7 or h8.

Show the solution

Three moves give checkmate:

  1. Qg7# (d4 to g7). After this move, the white queen on g7 gives check to the black king on h6, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on h6 has no safe square to go to (g5, g6, g7, h5 and h7). Its own knight on g5, pawn on g6 and pawn on h5 stand in the way. h7 is covered by the white queen on g7. The white queen on g7 cannot be captured: the king may not take it, as the white rook on g8 guards g7. The white queen on g7 stands right next to the king, so nothing can be put in between.
  2. Qh8# (d4 to h8). After this move, the white queen on h8 gives check to the black king on h6, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on h6 has no safe square to go to (g5, g6, g7, h5 and h7). Its own knight on g5, pawn on g6 and pawn on h5 stand in the way. g7 is covered by the white rook on g8 and the white queen on h8. h7 is covered by the white queen on h8. No black piece can capture the white queen on h8. The check cannot be blocked on h7: the black knight on g5 is pinned to its king by the white bishop on d2.
  3. Rh8# (g8 to h8). After this move, the white rook on h8 gives check to the black king on h6, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on h6 has no safe square to go to (g5, g6, g7, h5 and h7). Its own knight on g5, pawn on g6 and pawn on h5 stand in the way. g7 is covered by the white queen on d4. h7 is covered by the white rook on h8. No black piece can capture the white rook on h8. The check cannot be blocked on h7: the black knight on g5 is pinned to its king by the white bishop on d2.

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 March 2026. From a game that began with the Scotch Game. 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.