Mate in 3: queen to f2 (g1)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1852 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 h4, queen d6, rook d1, pawn g2 h3 c4 f4 b5 a6.
Black: king g8, queen g1, rook e3, pawn f5 b6 g6 a7 h7.
9 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 39.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (20 against 19; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h4, the black king on g8.
It is Black to move on move 39, with 27 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
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
39... Qf2+ 40. Kg5 Qg3+ 41. Kh6 Qh4#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f2 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to g3 (#1).
- Strong! queen to h4 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kg5, then Qg3+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 39… Qf2+ — queen to f2 with check
- 40. Kg5 — king to g5
- Qg3+ — queen to g3 with check
- 41. Kh6 — king to h6
- Qh4# — queen to h4 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.
Relative pin
A piece shields a more valuable one behind it — moving it loses material.
In a relative pin the piece shields not its king but something valuable behind it, usually the queen. Moving is legal but costly, because the piece behind falls. Look for three units on one line: your long-range piece, a cheaper enemy piece, and an expensive one hiding behind. Beware the classic trap — a relatively pinned piece can still move with check or a bigger threat, so verify before you cash in.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 013
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