Mate in 3: deflection on g1
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 2237 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Deflection drags a defender away from its duty. Identify the enemy piece that guards a key square or mate, then force it to move — with a check, a capture or a threat it must answer — and strike where it no longer defends.
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 h3, rook b7 f7, pawn h2 g3 f4.
Black: king g6, rook a2, knight f3, pawn f6 h6.
6 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 37.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 3 points of material (13 against 10; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h3, the black king on g6.
It is Black to move on move 37, with 26 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: g.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
37... Ng1+ 38. Kh4 Rxh2+ 39. Kg4 h5#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to g1 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to h2 (#1).
- Strong! pawn to h5 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh4, then Rxh2+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 37… Ng1+ — knight to g1 with check
- 38. Kh4 — king to h4
- Rxh2+ — rook to h2 (capture) with check
- 39. Kg4 — king to g4
- h5# — pawn to h5 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Pawn mate
The humblest soldier delivers the final blow.
The pawn mate lets the humblest soldier land the final blow. It happens to a king stuck among its own and enemy pieces: the pawn strikes diagonally from one square away and there is nowhere left to run. The sign: the squares around the king are covered or occupied, and your pawn stands one step from striking distance. Never write pawns out of your attack — their blows are the cheapest and therefore the most humiliating.
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).
Pack 015
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