Mate in 3: queen to c6 (c5·3)
c9-09515naming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1980 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
In Chess960 the pieces start on unfamiliar squares, so tactics appear earlier and from unusual angles. Do not trust classical patterns — read the actual lines of the bishops, the rooks and the queen from where they really stand in this position.
In a mate in three every move must be forcing; the defender should never get a free tempo. Find the check or threat that herds the king, calculate the single defence to each, and confirm the net closes on the third move.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king a1, queen c5, rook d1 f1, bishop g4, pawn b2 d3 d4 h4 h6.
Black: king g8, queen c6, pawn f7 h7.
10 white and 4 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 16 points of material (27 against 11; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on a1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 30, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c, e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30. Qxc6 Kf8 31. Qd6+ Kg8 32. Qd8#
Why it works
- Best move. queen to c6 is exactly what the engine plays (#2).
- Spot on — queen to d6 (#1).
- Precise: queen to d8 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kf8, then Qd6+ and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 30. Qxc6 — queen to c6 (capture)
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 31. Qd6+ — queen to d6 with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 32. Qd8# — queen to d8 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Mate in 3
A forced checkmate in three moves.
Mate in three is a forced staircase: each of your moves narrows the opponent's choices, and the third one ends the game. Look for the start among checks and sacrifices — quiet first moves are rare in mating problems, but deliciously sneaky. Keep the tree in your head: every defense gets its own branch. Do not stop calculating after move two — see the final mating picture with your own eyes.
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #560.
SP-560 · ThroneGuard — The king starts in the middle of the back rank, on d or e, and neither knight begins in a corner.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on c1 and g1, the queen on h1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 495.
The engine's main line opens with g3.
Morozov Balance Index: 7 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +46 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #560Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 014 · SP-560
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