Mate in 3: rook to h1
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1090 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 g2, rook f1, bishop c4, pawn a2 b3.
Black: king h8, rook e5 f8, bishop c8, pawn f2 c6 a7 b7 g7.
5 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 33.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 8 points of material (10 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 g2, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 33, with 22 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, f, g.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
33. Rh1+ Bh3+ 34. Rxh3+ Rh5 35. Rxh5#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h1 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to h3 (#1).
- Strong! rook to h5 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Bh3+, then Rxh3+ and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 33. Rh1+ — rook to h1 with check
- Bh3+ — bishop to h3 with check
- 34. Rxh3+ — rook to h3 (capture) with check
- Rh5 — rook to h5
- 35. Rxh5# — rook to h5 (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.
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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