♟ Chess Opening Scores

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

Mate in one: White to move (exercise m1-c7b8fe7f29)

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 July 2026.

Last move: 44…Kd8 (Black's king from c8 to d8); 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: the pawn becomes a new piece.

Hint 2: which square?

Every mating move goes to h8.

Show the solution

Two moves give checkmate:

  1. h8=Q# (h7 to h8). The pawn becomes a queen on h8. After this move, the white queen on h8 gives check to the black king on d8, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on d8 has no safe square to go to (c7, c8, d7, e7 and e8). c7 is covered by the white rook on a7. c8 is covered by the white queen on h8. d7 is covered by the white rook on a7. e7 is covered by the white rook on a7. e8 is covered by the white queen on h8. No black piece can capture the white queen on h8. No black piece can move to e8, f8 or g8 to block the check.
  2. h8=R# (h7 to h8). The pawn becomes a rook on h8. After this move, the white rook on h8 gives check to the black king on d8, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on d8 has no safe square to go to (c7, c8, d7, e7 and e8). c7 is covered by the white rook on a7. c8 is covered by the white rook on h8. d7 is covered by the white rook on a7. e7 is covered by the white rook on a7. e8 is covered by the white rook on h8. No black piece can capture the white rook on h8. No black piece can move to e8, f8 or g8 to block the check.

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 July 2026. From a game that began with the Horwitz Defense. 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.