Mate in 3: knight to h6 (f5)
c9-20384naming 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 1760 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 g1, queen f1, rook a2 h5, bishop c1, knight f5, pawn g2 c4 e4 b5 a7.
Black: king g8, queen e8, rook g7 f8, knight e6, pawn d4 c5.
11 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 31.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 6 points of material (30 against 24; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 31, with 51 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): f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
31. Nh6+ Kh7 32. Nf7+ Kg8 33. Rh8#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to h6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: knight to f7 (#1).
- Precise: rook to h8 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh7, then Nf7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 31. Nh6+ — knight to h6 with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 32. Nf7+ — knight to f7 with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 33. Rh8# — rook to h8 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.
Discovered check
The moving piece opens a check — and is free to grab anything meanwhile.
With a discovered check the moving piece unmasks a check from the piece standing behind it. While the king deals with the check, the piece that moved grabs whatever it likes, free of charge. Look for your long-range piece on a line with the enemy king, with exactly one of your own pieces in between. The rule: among all the ways to step aside, pick the one that captures or attacks the most expensive loot.
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 #146.
SP-146 · RampartGuard — A b- or g-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on g1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on e1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: a2.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 807.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 18 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +38 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #146Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 013 · SP-146
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