Mate in 3: rook to h7
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1477 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 g1, rook f7, bishop e5, pawn a2 b3 e3 g3 h3.
Black: king h5, rook d2 g6, bishop a6, pawn e4 g5 b6 a7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 32.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (13 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 g1, the black king on h5.
It is White to move on move 32, with 31 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
32. Rxh7+ Rh6 33. g4+ Kg6 34. Rg7#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h7 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: pawn to g4 (#1).
- Strong! rook to g7 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Rh6, then g4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 32. Rxh7+ — rook to h7 (capture) with check
- Rh6 — rook to h6
- 33. g4+ — pawn to g4 with check
- Kg6 — king to g6
- 34. Rg7# — rook to g7 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.
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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