Mate in 3: discovered attack on e7
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1531 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 g3, queen d3, rook d1, knight d5 f5, pawn h2 a3 e3 f3 g4.
Black: king g8, queen b2, rook c1 d8, bishop b6 g6, pawn a7 b7 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (25 against 30; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g3, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 40 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 — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. 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
25. Nde7+ Kf8 26. Qxd8+ Bxd8 27. Rxd8#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e7 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to d8 (#1).
- Strong! rook to d8 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kf8, then Qxd8+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 25. Nde7+ — knight to e7 with check
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 26. Qxd8+ — queen to d8 (capture) with check
- Bxd8 — bishop to d8 (capture)
- 27. Rxd8# — rook to d8 (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.
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 011
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