Mate in 3: queen to f7 (b7)
li-058MBnaming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1642 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 g1, queen b7, bishop b2, knight e5, pawn f2 g2 h2 a3 d4.
Black: king g8, queen a5, rook b8, bishop c8, knight f6, pawn b6 a7 g7 h7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (20 against 24; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 28, with 36 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28. Qf7+ Kh8 29. Qf8+ Ng8 30. Nf7#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f7 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to f8 (#1).
- Strong! knight to f7 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh8, then Qf8+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 28. Qf7+ — queen to f7 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 29. Qf8+ — queen to f8 with check
- Ng8 — knight to g8
- 30. Nf7# — knight to f7 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Smothered mate
The king is buried under its own pieces — only a knight can reach it.
The smothered mate suffocates a king buried under its own army: every neighboring square is blocked by friendly pieces, and the knight — needing no open lines — delivers the blow. The classic mechanism: knight check, king hides in the corner, a queen sacrifice forces a rook to plug the last hole, and the knight mates. Look for a cornered king surrounded by its own pieces and a knight one hop away. Do not mourn the queen — she only opens the door.
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.
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.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 013
Similar puzzles
In your browser or in the Android app. Nothing to install · Free, no ads