Mate in 3: queen to f7 (h7·4)
c9-22021naming tag (square·N)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
Position on the board
White: king d1, queen h7, rook c1 e1, bishop g2, pawn f2 d3 a6.
Black: king d8, rook f7 b8, knight e8, pawn b3 a7 d7.
8 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
Solution & explanation
Main line
32. Qxf7 Nc7 33. Qe7+ Kc8 34. Qf8#
Why it works
- Best move. queen to f7 is exactly what the engine plays (#2).
- Spot on — queen to e7 (#1).
- Precise: queen to f8 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Nc7, then Qe7+ and you win the rook.
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 #495.
SP-495 · ThroneGuard — Both knights start on inner files (b–g) while the king sits centrally on d or e — one of 204 positions filed here.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on b1 and f1, the queen on a1.
The kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king, from d1 to g1.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
The pawn on d2 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 560.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 72 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +20 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #495Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 014 · SP-495
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