Mate in 3: bishop to e6 (c4)
c9-23459naming 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.
A fork made possible by the Chess960 piece placement.
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.
A set-up fork needs one preparing move before the fork lands — a check that drives the king onto the forking square, or a capture that lines the targets up. Find the preparation first, then the fork it makes possible.
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 g6, rook c1 f1, bishop a1 c4, knight g3 c5, pawn a2 d2 f2 g2 h2 e3.
Black: king g8, queen b8, rook c8 f8, bishop d6 b7, pawn d4 h4 e6 f6 a7 g7.
14 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 19.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 6 points of material (37 against 31; 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 19, with 53 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19. Bxe6+ Rf7 20. Qxf7+ Kh8 21. Qh5#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Spot on — queen to f7 (#1).
- Precise: queen to h5 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Rf7, then Qxf7+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 19. Bxe6+ — bishop to e6 (capture) with check
- Rf7 — rook to f7
- 20. Qxf7+ — queen to f7 (capture) with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 21. Qh5# — queen to h5 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Corner mate
Driven into the corner, the king runs out of squares.
The corner mate catches a king driven into the corner, where it has only three neighboring squares — all of them taken away or blocked. The corner is the worst home for a king, because the attacker needs to control the fewest squares there. Herd the king toward the corner with checks and never let it slip back toward the center. Cut off the escape routes before the final check, and the mate practically assembles itself.
Setup fork
The random setup allows a fork that classical chess never sees.
A setup fork is a double attack that exists only because of the unusual starting squares — in classical chess these targets never stand side by side. Look for pairs of undefended pieces on your opponent's back rank and for squares from which a knight or pawn hits both at once. Such forks usually appear within the first moves, before the pieces disperse. In every new position, note right away which starting pieces are defended by no one.
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.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #290.
SP-290 · ThroneScout — The king starts on d or e while at least one knight begins in a corner.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and g1, the queen on b1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from e1 to c1.
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: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 375.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 16 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +39 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #290Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-290
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