Mate in 3: discovered attack on g7
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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 1856 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White 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 h2, queen g4, rook g1, bishop d3 g3, pawn a2 c2 f2 b3 f4 e5.
Black: king h8, queen d4, rook d8 f8, bishop g7, pawn b5 c6 e6 h6 a7 f7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (26 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 h2, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 27, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: h.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27. Qxg7+ Kxg7 28. Bh4+ Kh8 29. Bf6#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g7 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: bishop to h4 (#1).
- Strong! bishop to f6 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kxg7, then Bh4+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 27. Qxg7+ — queen to g7 (capture) with check
- Kxg7 — king to g7 (capture)
- 28. Bh4+ — bishop to h4 with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 29. Bf6# — bishop to f6 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.
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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