Mate in 3: rook to h6 (h1·2)
li-0Hk7Snaming 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 1924 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 b1, queen d6, rook h1, bishop d3, knight e7, pawn b2 c2 a3 g3.
Black: king h8, queen a7, rook b8 d8, bishop e6, pawn h6 f7 g7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (24 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 b1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 36, with 47 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): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f, h.
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
36. Rxh6+ gxh6 37. Qe5+ f6 38. Qxf6#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h6 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to e5 (#1).
- Strong! queen to f6 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead gxh6, then Qe5+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 36. Rxh6+ — rook to h6 (capture) with check
- gxh6 — pawn to h6 (capture)
- 37. Qe5+ — queen to e5 with check
- f6 — pawn to f6
- 38. Qxf6# — queen to f6 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Corner mate
Driven into the corner, the king runs out of squares.
The corner mate catches a king driven into the corner, where it has only three neighboring squares — all of them taken away or blocked. The corner is the worst home for a king, because the attacker needs to control the fewest squares there. Herd the king toward the corner with checks and never let it slip back toward the center. Cut off the escape routes before the final check, and the mate practically assembles 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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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