Mate in 3: knight to e6 (c5·2)
c9-25999naming 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 e2, queen e7, rook f1, bishop c1, knight c5, pawn c2 h2 g3 e4 f4.
Black: king g7, rook a1 f7, pawn a5 g6 h7.
10 white and 6 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 12 points of material (25 against 13; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e2, the black king on g7.
It is White to move on move 29, with 45 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a.
The White king has 7 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29. Ne6+ Kh8 30. Qe8+ Rf8 31. Qxf8#
Why it works
- Best move. knight to e6 is exactly what the engine plays (#2).
- Spot on — queen to e8 (#1).
- Precise: queen to f8 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh8, then Qe8+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 29. Ne6+ — knight to e6 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 30. Qe8+ — queen to e8 with check
- Rf8 — rook to f8
- 31. Qxf8# — queen to f8 (capture) 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.
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 #631.
SP-631 · ThroneGuard — A central king (d or e) and two knights tucked onto inner files: the family that holds the standard array, SP-518.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on a1 and f1, the queen on e1.
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.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 226.
The engine's main line opens with Nc3, bringing the knight out to c3.
Morozov Balance Index: 86 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +15 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #631Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-631
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