Mate in 3 Chess Puzzles

By the numbers

mate in 3 puzzles: the numbers

There are 195,740 mate in 3 puzzles, solved 601,737,280 times in total. The median rating is 1328.

How hard are they?

Often combined with

Checkmate · 195,740Endgame tactics · 101,517Middlegame tactics · 91,722Sacrifice · 86,755Back-rank mate · 47,973Kingside attack · 31,198Attraction · 24,652Exposed king · 22,061Fork · 14,577Deflection · 13,598

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 2,450Italian Game · 1,489French Defence · 1,234King's Gambit · 821Scandinavian Defense · 820Caro–Kann Defence · 802Scotch Game · 733

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: 9,740 mate in 3 puzzles (5% of all 195,740).

100% need 3 solver moves. Median rating: 1325 for the shortest solutions, 1325 for the longest.

48% open with a queen move. The first move captures in 36.3% and gives check in 96.9%; 100% end in checkmate, 54.3% involve a sacrifice, 50.2% 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 9,740 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 (19.4%), h7 (6.3%), e8 (5.3%), g6 (5.2%), d8 (5%).

Counted from the same 9,740-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.