Mate in 3: double attack on b6
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The tactical motive
Deflection: force the defender to abandon its post.
Double attack: one move creates two threats at once.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1843 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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.
A double attack threatens two things at once so the opponent cannot parry both. Look for a single move — often a queen or knight — that creates two separate threats, such as a check plus an attack on a loose piece.
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, rook c1 d1, knight c4, pawn a2 f2 g2 h2.
Black: king c8, queen h6, rook g6 a8, bishop e6, knight d8, pawn a7 b7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 11 points of material (17 against 28; 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 c8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 31 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, 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
25. Nb6+ Kb8 26. Rxd8+ Bc8 27. Rcxc8#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to b6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to d8 (#1).
- Precise: rook to c8 is the top choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kb8, then Rxd8+ and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 25. Nb6+ — knight to b6 with check
- Kb8 — king to b8
- 26. Rxd8+ — rook to d8 (capture) with check
- Bc8 — bishop to c8
- 27. Rcxc8# — rook to c8 (capture) 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.
Royal fork
A fork with check: the king must move, and the second piece is lost.
A royal fork is a fork with check — one of the two targets is the king itself. The check must be answered first, so nobody is left to rescue the second piece. Look for squares where your piece gives check and simultaneously attacks an undefended queen or rook. It is the most reliable fork of all, because your opponent literally has no choice.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 013
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