Mate in 3: discovered attack on c3
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 2249 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
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 c1, queen g3, rook d1 e1, bishop f3, pawn b2 g2 a3 c3 f4 h6.
Black: king g8, queen f6, rook e3 b6, pawn d5 a7 b7 c7 f7 g7 h7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (28 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c1, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 22, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The Black king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
22... Rxc3+ 23. Kb1 Rc1+ 24. Kxc1 Qxb2#
Why it works
- Great move! rook to c3 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to c1 (#1).
- Strong! queen to b2 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kb1, then Rc1+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 22… Rxc3+ — rook to c3 (capture) with check
- 23. Kb1 — king to b1
- Rc1+ — rook to c1 with check
- 24. Kxc1 — king to c1 (capture)
- Qxb2# — queen to b2 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
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).
Pack 015
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