Mate in 3: knight to e5 (d7)
c9-22017naming 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 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 h2, queen h6, rook f1 h1, bishop c3 f5, knight b3 d7, pawn a2 b2 g2 f3 h4.
Black: king g8, queen e5, bishop b6, knight c8, pawn c4 d4 h5 c6 e6 a7.
13 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 15 points of material (36 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 6 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, d, e.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
23. Nxe5 exf5 24. Qg6+ Kh8 25. Nf7#
Why it works
- Best move. knight to e5 is exactly what the engine plays (#2).
- Spot on — queen to g6 (#1).
- Precise: knight to f7 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead exf5, then Qg6+ and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 23. Nxe5 — knight to e5 (capture)
- exf5 — pawn to f5 (capture)
- 24. Qg6+ — queen to g6 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 25. Nf7# — knight to f7 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Knight mate
The knight lands the killing blow from its unique angle.
In a knight mate the final blow comes from the knight — the only piece whose check can never be blocked. That makes it lethal against a cramped king: only a king move or capturing the knight itself can help. The sign: the squares around the king are occupied or covered, and there is a hop from which the knight checks while staying untouchable. Bring the knight over early — it is slower than the long-range pieces, but its strike cannot be parried.
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 #25.
SP-25 · RampartScout — A wing-file king (b or g) and at least one corner knight: the rarest of the six families, just 72 positions.
The king starts on g1, the rooks on f1 and h1, the queen on b1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on d1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h5 and a5 once the e- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartScout family; read right to left it becomes position 937.
The engine's main line opens with h4.
Morozov Balance Index: 51 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +26 centipawns for White (depth 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #25Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-25
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads