Mate in 3: pawn to g4
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1073 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 f3, rook b6, knight b3, pawn g2 e3 h3 d4.
Black: king h5, rook a7, knight a2, pawn a3 d5 f5 g5 h6.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 48.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (12 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 f3, the black king on h5.
It is White to move on move 48, with 23 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, f.
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
48. g4+ fxg4+ 49. hxg4+ Kh4 50. Rxh6#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to g4 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: pawn to g4 (#1).
- Strong! rook to h6 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead fxg4+, then hxg4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 48. g4+ — pawn to g4 with check
- fxg4+ — pawn to g4 (capture) with check
- 49. hxg4+ — pawn to g4 (capture) with check
- Kh4 — king to h4
- 50. Rxh6# — rook to h6 (capture) 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.
Overload
One defender guards two things — it cannot do both jobs.
Overloading exploits a defender with two jobs at once — guarding a piece and covering a mating square, for instance. It cannot do both: your first strike forces it to handle one duty and abandon the other. Find the overworked piece by asking what happens to each of its charges if it gets distracted. Then hit one target and collect the other — an overloaded defender only pretends to defend.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 007
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