♟ Chess Opening Scores

Openings › Mate in one › October 2025 › Exercise 1 of 4

Mate in one: Black to move (exercise m1-fbccb4f8db)

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 October 2025.

Last move: 30.g3 (White's pawn from g2 to g3); 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.

Hint 2: which square?

A mating move goes to d2 or g3.

Show the solution

Two moves give checkmate:

  1. Qd2# (f4 to d2). After this move, the black queen on d2 gives check to the white king on h2, and White has no legal move: checkmate. The white king on h2 has no safe square to go to (g1, g2, g3, h1 and h3). Its own pawn on g3 and pawn on h3 stand in the way. g1 is covered by the black rook on e1. g2 is covered by the black queen on d2. h1 is covered by the black rook on e1. No white piece can capture the black queen on d2. No white piece can move to e2, f2 or g2 to block the check.
  2. Qxg3# (f4 to g3). After this move, the black queen on g3 gives check to the white king on h2, and White has no legal move: checkmate. The white king on h2 has no safe square to go to (g1, g2, g3, h1 and h3). Its own pawn on h3 stands in the way. g1 is covered by the black rook on e1 and the black queen on g3. g2 is covered by the black queen on g3. h1 is covered by the black rook on e1. The black queen on g3 cannot be captured: the king may not take it, as the black rook on g8 guards g3. The black queen on g3 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 October 2025. From a game that began with the Scandinavian Defense: Mieses-Kotroc Variation. 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.