Mate in 3: bishop to a4
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The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1630 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 d2, queen f2, rook e1 h1, bishop c2 g3, knight c1 e8, pawn a2 b2 g2 h2 c3 f3.
Black: king c6, queen f8, rook b7 h8, bishop b6, knight h6 a8, pawn a5 c5 e6 d7 g7 h7.
14 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 16.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (37 against 34; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d2, the black king on c6.
It is White to move on move 16, with 50 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: d, e.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
16. Ba4+ Kd5 17. Re5+ Kc4 18. Qe2#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to a4 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Spot on — rook to e5 (#1).
- Precise: queen to e2 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kd5, then Re5+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 16. Ba4+ — bishop to a4 with check
- Kd5 — king to d5
- 17. Re5+ — rook to e5 with check
- Kc4 — king to c4
- 18. Qe2# — queen to e2 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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #249.
SP-249 · BastionScout — Off-centre king plus a rim knight (a/h): 168 positions carry this shape.
The king starts on c1, the rooks on b1 and h1, the queen on f1.
The king already stands on c1, so castling long moves only the rook, from b1 to d1.
The bishops stand on d1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h5 and a5 once the e- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: a2.
The setup belongs to the BastionScout family; read right to left it becomes position 617.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 6 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +48 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #249Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-249
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