Mate in 3: double attack on f7
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The tactical motive
Double attack: one move creates two threats at once.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 2025 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A double attack threatens two things at once so the opponent cannot parry both. Look for a single move — often a queen or knight — that creates two separate threats, such as a check plus an attack on a loose piece.
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, queen d4, rook c7 e7, bishop c4, pawn b2 f2 h2 a3 g3.
Black: king g8, queen b5, rook d8 f8, bishop h3, pawn a5 b6 f7 g7 h7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 27 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 49 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, e — 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
23. Rxf7 Rxd4 24. Rxg7+ Kh8 25. Rxh7#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f7 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to g7 (#1).
- Strong! rook to h7 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Rxd4, then Rxg7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 23. Rxf7 — rook to f7 (capture)
- Rxd4 — rook to d4 (capture)
- 24. Rxg7+ — rook to g7 (capture) with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 25. Rxh7# — rook to h7 (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.
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 014
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