Mate in 3: queen to f3 (d5)
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The tactical motive
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1960 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 h3, queen b7, knight d3, pawn a2 c2 f2 c3 g4.
Black: king d6, queen d5, rook e6, pawn c6 a7.
8 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 37.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (17 against 16; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h3, the black king on d6.
It is Black to move on move 37, with 29 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): b, d, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: f, g.
The Black king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
37... Qf3+ 38. Kh4 Rh6+ 39. Kg5 Qf6#
Why it works
- Great move! queen to f3 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: rook to h6 (#1).
- Strong! queen to f6 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kh4, then Rh6+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 37… Qf3+ — queen to f3 with check
- 38. Kh4 — king to h4
- Rh6+ — rook to h6 with check
- 39. Kg5 — king to g5
- Qf6# — queen to f6 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 014
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