Checks, Captures, Threats: How to Find Candidate Moves in Mate Puzzles

When you get stuck on a mate puzzle, the problem is often not calculation. The right move never made it onto your list of candidates. If you look at the board and start reading whatever move catches your eye, the moves that don’t catch your eye never get read at all.

A common piece of chess coaching advice is to list candidate moves in a fixed order: checks, captures, threats. It is sometimes shortened to CCT. This post covers why the order works and how to use it in mate puzzles. Each position was checked with a program: the moves given really do mate, and the first move is the only one that works.

Why this order

The three are ordered by how much they restrict the opponent.

Checks. A player in check has to get out of it. There are only three ways: move the king, capture the checking piece, or block. Fewer replies means less to calculate. The three ways are covered in Check vs Checkmate.

Captures. When a piece is taken, the other side usually has to recapture or accept the loss. In mate puzzles, this means taking a piece that guards the king, or offering a piece so that a defender is pulled away.

Threats. A move that aims at something next turn. In a mate puzzle the threat that matters most is “mate next move”. The opponent has to stop it, but there are usually more ways to stop a threat than to answer a check.

What matters more than the order is listing everything. Don’t find one check and start reading. List every check first. Then every capture. Then think about threats.

Position 1: found among the checks

Position 1: White king g1, rooks e1 and e2, pawns f2, g2 and h2. Black king g8, rook d8, pawns f7, g7 and h7. White to move, mate in 2.

Listing the checks, there is Re8+, moving the e2 rook to e8. The rook on e8 can simply be taken by Black’s rook. Counting material, it looks like a move you would throw away.

But Black has to answer the check. The king cannot go to f8 or h8, so the only move is Rxe8. White recaptures with the e1 rook, Rxe8, and that is mate. Black’s king is boxed in by its own pawns.

This is why checks come first. A move that gives up a piece normally drops off your list. But when it is a check, the opponent has only one reply, so you can read past the sacrifice in a few moves. Shapes like this come up a lot in back rank mates.

Position 2: every check fails, and the threat wins

Position 2: White king c6, queen c1. Black king c8, pawn e7. White to move, mate in 2.

First, list the checks. When White’s king steps off the c-file, the queen on c1 behind it gives check. This is a discovered check. There are three: Kb6+, Kb5+ and Kd5+. They all look strong, but Black answers each with Kd8, and there is no mate next move.

Next, captures. There is nothing to take.

So look at threats. Qf4 is neither a check nor a capture, but it threatens Qf8 mate. Whatever Black plays, the mate cannot be stopped. After Kd8, Qf8 or Qb8 mates. After the pawn goes to e6, Qf8 or Qc7 mates. After e5, Qf8 mates.

Spending time on all three checks here is not wasted. Once you see that every check runs into Kd8, you also learn that you need a move that has something ready after the king reaches d8. The queen on f4 covers the f-file and the diagonal from c7 to b8. If the king goes to d8, mate is waiting on both f8 and b8. The failed checks point you to the next candidate.

Position 3: none of the three

Position 3: White king d6, rook d2, knight d3. Black king e8. White to move, mate in 2.

The only check is Re2+, and Black escapes with Kf8. There is nothing to capture. And there is no move that sets up an immediate mate threat.

The answer is Rf2. It is not a check, not a capture, and it does not threaten mate. If Black could pass, White would have no mate next move. But chess has no passing. Black’s king has d7 and e7 covered by White’s king and f7 and f8 covered by the rook, so the only legal move is Kd8. Then Rf8 is mate.

A position where having to move is a disadvantage is called zugzwang (English Wikipedia’s Zugzwang explains it in detail). Checks, captures and threats will not turn up this kind of move.

When the order finds nothing

When looking for a move like the one in Position 3, check two things.

First, count every square the black king can move to. If there are only one or two, the candidates are moves that cover those squares, or moves that prepare a mate on the square the king runs to. In Position 3 the escapes were the f-file and d8. Take away the f-file, and the king can be mated on d8.

Second, list every move Black has. When Black has few moves, Black has to play one of them, whatever White does. It helps to think of White’s quiet move as a move that turns each of Black’s few options into a bad one.

Quiet moves have a trap, though. If you take away every Black move and Black is not in check, that is stalemate, a draw. That is why leaving Black the move Kd8 matters in Position 3.

Use the same order for Black’s replies

The method works for checking your opponent’s replies too. Once you pick a candidate, list Black’s defences in the same order: Black’s checks, Black’s captures, Black’s threats.

Most misreads in mate puzzles come from missing one defence. Easy ones to miss are Black giving check back to White’s king and Black taking one of White’s attacking pieces. If you list Black’s moves in the same order as your own, you miss fewer of them.

Compared with shogi’s “start with checks”

Shogi players will know the habit of starting with checks. In tsume shogi, every attacking move must be a check, so the candidates are only checks. List them all, and the answer is always among them.

In chess mate puzzles, checks are only the first candidates you look at. As Positions 2 and 3 show, the answer can still be there after every check fails. Checks, captures, threats can be seen as shogi’s “list every check” widened to fit the larger set of candidates in chess. The differences between the two puzzle types are in Tsume Shogi vs Chess Mate Puzzles.

Practising with Chess365

Chess365 is a checkmate puzzle app with 1,000 puzzles each of mate in 2, 3, 4 and 5. You always play White, you can make any legal move, and Black answers with the most stubborn defence. Many puzzles have a quiet first move, so they fit this exact practice: list all checks, captures and threats, and if none work, look for the quiet move.

If the line can no longer mate, the attempt fails, and you have three retries. If you leave Black with no legal move and no check, the app shows “Stalemate”, and that also counts as a failure.

A hint lights up the piece to move and the square it goes to. You still make the move yourself. One approach is to use hints on the first move only, after you have listed every candidate and still found nothing. Ask yourself which of the three the lit move belongs to, and it will help the next time you get stuck on a similar shape. After solving, “Review moves” lets you step back and forward one move at a time.

Every puzzle is free to solve, and a one-time Remove Ads purchase turns the ads off. How to read mate in 2 is in Chess Checkmate Puzzles for Beginners, and how to use the app is in Getting Started with Chess365.