Mate in 3: pin on g2
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Pin: a piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.
Difficulty 1461 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black 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.
A pin freezes a piece in front of a more valuable one behind it. Scan the ranks, files and diagonals your bishop, rook or queen controls: if an enemy piece cannot move without exposing its king or queen, it is pinned and can be piled on or bypassed.
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 h1, queen h6, rook g1, bishop d3, pawn a2 b2 c2 g2 h2.
Black: king g8, queen d5, rook e3, bishop b7, pawn g6 a7 f7.
9 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (22 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 h1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 29, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, c, h.
The Black king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29... Qxg2+ 30. Rxg2 Re1+ 31. Bf1 Rxf1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g2 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to e1 (#1).
- Strong! rook to f1 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Rxg2, then Re1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 29… Qxg2+ — queen to g2 (capture) with check
- 30. Rxg2 — rook to g2 (capture)
- Re1+ — rook to e1 with check
- 31. Bf1 — bishop to f1
- Rxf1# — rook to f1 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Back-rank mate
The king is locked behind its own pawns — a heavy piece strikes the last rank.
The back-rank mate strikes a king locked behind its own unmoved pawns when a rook or queen crashes onto the last rank. The signs: no escape hole in front of the king, and the back rank guarded by a single piece or by nobody at all. Often that lone guard is deflected or traded off first, and only then comes the invasion. In your own games, make luft in time — one pawn move prevents a sudden catastrophe.
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 011
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