Mate in 3: rook to h6
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1165 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
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 c1, queen g2, rook h1, bishop d5, pawn a2 b2 c2 f2 d3 g6.
Black: king h8, queen d6, rook e2 f6, knight b8, pawn b5 c5 a6 h6 g7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (23 against 27; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: h.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26. Rxh6+ gxh6 27. g7+ Kh7 28. g8=Q#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: pawn to g7 (#1).
- Strong! pawn to g8 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead gxh6, then g7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 26. Rxh6+ — rook to h6 (capture) with check
- gxh6 — pawn to h6 (capture)
- 27. g7+ — pawn to g7 with check
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 28. g8=Q# — pawn to g8 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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