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Openings › Mate in one › January 2026 › Exercise 2 of 4

Mate in one: White to move (exercise m1-feefd105c4)

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 January 2026.

Last move: 39…Kh5 (Black's king from h6 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 queen move or a rook move.

Hint 2: which square?

A mating move goes to f5 or h8.

Show the solution

Two moves give checkmate:

  1. Rf5# (f1 to f5). After this move, the white rook on f5 gives check to the black king on h5, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on h5 has no safe square to go to (g4, g5, g6, h4 and h6). Its own pawn on h4 stands in the way. g4 is covered by the white rook on g2 and the white bishop on h3. g5 is covered by the white rook on f5 and the white rook on g2. h6 is covered by the white queen on f8. The king may not take the white pawn on g6: the white rook on g2 guards g6. No black piece can capture the white rook on f5. No black piece can move to g5 to block the check.
  2. Qh8# (f8 to h8). After this move, the white queen on h8 gives check to the black king on h5, and Black has no legal move: checkmate. The black king on h5 has no safe square to go to (g4, g5, g6, h4 and h6). Its own pawn on h4 stands in the way. g4 is covered by the white rook on g2 and the white bishop on h3. g5 is covered by the white rook on g2. h6 is covered by the white queen on h8. The king may not take the white pawn on g6: the white rook on g2 guards g6. No black piece can capture the white queen on h8. No black piece can move to h6 or h7 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 January 2026. From a game that began with the King's Knight Opening: Normal Variation. 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.