Find the forced mate — thousands of real-game puzzles, from one-move finishes to deep combinations. Free, no sign-up.
Every puzzle is taken from a real game and has a forced checkmate — your job is to find it. Start with one-move mates and work up to four-move combinations. Your puzzle rating adjusts automatically so you always get positions that stretch you just enough.
You always play the side at the bottom of the board. Watch your opponent's move play out, then find the checkmate: tap a piece to see its legal moves and tap the destination, or simply drag and drop. Every move you play must keep forcing mate — a wrong move gets bounced back so you can try again.
You start at 800. Solve a puzzle on the first try and your rating climbs — harder puzzles pay more points. A mistake costs a few points, just like a real rated game. Your rating, streak and solve count are saved on your device only, so they're waiting for you next visit with no account needed.
Mate in 1 sharpens pattern recognition — perfect for warming up. Mate in 2 adds a forcing first move and an opponent reply. Mate in 3 and Mate in 4+ demand real calculation: every opponent defence must be answered. Within each level, puzzles adapt to your rating.
Some positions have more than one way to deliver mate. If your move is checkmate, it's accepted — even when it differs from the database solution. For earlier moves in longer puzzles you need the forcing line, because only forcing moves guarantee mate against every defence.
Check every forcing move first: checks, captures, threats — in that order. Look at which escape squares the enemy king has and which of your pieces could cover them. In longer mates, the quiet-looking first move is often a sacrifice that drags the king into the open. Stuck? The hint button shows you which piece to move.
The board, the rules engine and all the puzzles run locally on your device — nothing you do here is uploaded anywhere. It works offline once loaded, on phones, tablets and desktops alike. No download, no sign-up, no ads interrupting your thinking mid-puzzle.