Mate in 3: pawn to g5
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1362 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 h2, rook f7, bishop d5, pawn d4 f4 g4 h4.
Black: king h6, queen c1, rook b1, bishop d3, pawn a5 g6 h7.
7 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 41.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 8 points of material (12 against 20; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h2, the black king on h6.
It is White to move on move 41, with 27 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a.
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
41. g5+ Kh5 42. Bf3+ Kxh4 43. Rxh7#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to g5 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: bishop to f3 (#1).
- Strong! rook to h7 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh5, then Bf3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 41. g5+ — pawn to g5 with check
- Kh5 — king to h5
- 42. Bf3+ — bishop to f3 with check
- Kxh4 — king to h4 (capture)
- 43. Rxh7# — rook to h7 (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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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