Mate in 3: pin on f2 (h4)
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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 1931 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 g1, queen c3, rook a1 f1, bishop b2, knight b1, pawn a2 c2 f2 g2 h2 b3 e6.
Black: king g8, queen h4, rook d8, bishop c5 f5, pawn g6 a7 c7 f7 h7.
13 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 7 points of material (32 against 25; 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 Black to move on move 18, with 52 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, e.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
18... Qxf2+ 19. Rxf2 Rd1+ 20. Qe1 Rxe1#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f2 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to d1 (#1).
- Strong! rook to e1 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Rxf2, then Rd1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 18… Qxf2+ — queen to f2 (capture) with check
- 19. Rxf2 — rook to f2 (capture)
- Rd1+ — rook to d1 with check
- 20. Qe1 — queen to e1
- Rxe1# — rook to e1 (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.
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 014
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