Mate in 3 Puzzles: Challenging Level

By the numbers

mate in 3 puzzles at challenging level: the numbers

There are 40,887 mate in 3 puzzles at challenging level, solved 184,331,198 times in total. The median rating is 1766.

Often combined with

Checkmate · 40,887Middlegame tactics · 23,078Sacrifice · 19,546Endgame tactics · 17,126Attraction · 9,148Kingside attack · 8,705Exposed king · 6,614Fork · 3,737Deflection · 3,343Pin · 3,133

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 587Italian Game · 354French Defence · 299Queen's Pawn Game · 287Caro–Kann Defence · 204Scandinavian Defense · 168Scotch Game · 154Ruy Lopez · 151

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical mate in 3 solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 mate in 3 puzzles at challenging level (4.9% of all 40,887).

100% need 3 solver moves. Median rating: 1772 for the shortest solutions, 1772 for the longest.

40.2% open with a queen move. The first move captures in 36.2% and gives check in 95%; 100% end in checkmate, 53% involve a sacrifice, 55.5% have White to move.

How many moves does the solver need?

Which piece plays the key move?

What does the solver win?

Material balance along the whole line, counting every capture by both sides (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9):

How much is left on the board?

How it is counted: every puzzle in the sample is replayed move by move with a chess rules engine. A sacrifice means a piece that is captured on the very next ply and was worth more than what it captured itself (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9). Sample of 2,000 puzzles. Percentages are shares of the sample.

Where it happens

Where the key move lands

Where the solver’s first move ends, drawn from their own side (rank 1 is their back rank). Busiest squares: f7 (10.4%), h7 (10.1%), h8 (7.4%), g7 (7.2%), g6 (6.1%).

Counted from the same 2,000-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.