Mate in 3: bishop to a5 (d2·2)
c9-24831naming 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 e1, rook f1 a8, bishop d2 f3, knight f2 c6, pawn e2 c5 f5.
Black: king c7, rook e8 g8, bishop c2 h2, pawn e5 h7.
10 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 7 points of material (25 against 18; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e1, the black king on c7.
It is White to move on move 26, with 44 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, d, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: h.
The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26. Ba5+ Kd7 27. Ra7+ Kc8 28. Rc7#
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to a5 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to a7 (#1).
- Precise: rook to c7 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kd7, then Ra7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 26. Ba5+ — bishop to a5 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 27. Ra7+ — rook to a7 with check
- Kc8 — king to c8
- 28. Rc7# — rook to c7 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 #360.
SP-360 · ThroneScout — King on a central file (d/e) with a knight starting on the rim (a/h).
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and f1, the queen on g1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 317.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 14 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +40 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #360Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 013 · SP-360
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