Mate in 3: queen to g6 (h6·3)
c9-26247naming 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 f2, queen h6, rook d1, knight f3 e5, pawn d2 g2.
Black: king g8, queen b8, rook d5 h8, knight e8, pawn b3 c5 f6 g6.
7 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (22 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 43 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, c, f.
The White king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. Qxg6+ Ng7 24. Qf7+ Kh7 25. Rh1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to f7 (#1).
- Precise: rook to h1 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Ng7, then Qf7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 23. Qxg6+ — queen to g6 (capture) with check
- Ng7 — knight to g7
- 24. Qf7+ — queen to f7 with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 25. Rh1# — rook to h1 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.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals 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.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #98.
SP-98 · RampartGuard — A b- or g-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on g1, the rooks on d1 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.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 855.
The engine's main line opens with b4.
Morozov Balance Index: 83 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +16 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #98Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-98
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