Mate in 3: queen to f2 (d4·2)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1881 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.
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 e6, rook c1 f2, bishop c6, pawn a2 h2 b3 g3 f4.
Black: king g8, queen d4, rook f7, bishop b6 b7, pawn a6 g7.
10 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 40.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 5 points of material (27 against 22; 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 40, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 2. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, f, h.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
40... Qxf2+ 41. Kh1 Qf3+ 42. Bxf3 Bxf3#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f2 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to f3 (#1).
- Strong! bishop to f3 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh1, then Qf3+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 40… Qxf2+ — queen to f2 (capture) with check
- 41. Kh1 — king to h1
- Qf3+ — queen to f3 with check
- 42. Bxf3 — bishop to f3 (capture)
- Bxf3# — bishop to f3 (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.
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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