Mate in 3: queen to a6 (a4)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1834 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 a4, rook e1, bishop e2, pawn f2 a3 c3 e4 d5.
Black: king b6, queen h3, rook d8 h8, knight e5, pawn g4 a6 d6 f7 g7.
9 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 5 points of material (22 against 27; 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 b6.
It is White to move on move 23, with 28 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): b, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: g.
The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. Qxa6+ Kc7 24. Qa7+ Kc8 25. Ba6#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to a6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to a7 (#1).
- Strong! bishop to a6 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kc7, then Qa7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 23. Qxa6+ — queen to a6 (capture) with check
- Kc7 — king to c7
- 24. Qa7+ — queen to a7 with check
- Kc8 — king to c8
- 25. Ba6# — bishop to a6 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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.
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 defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 013
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