Chess Games
About Chess Games
Chess is the strategy game almost everyone knows, and its sharpest moment is the last one: checkmate. Spotting a mate is a skill of its own, and the best way to train it is with chess puzzles. A position is set up on the board, it is your move, and one move wins the game on the spot. Puzzles are the quickest way to enjoy chess when there is no time for a full game, and they sharpen your eye for the one that counts.
Mate in One turns that idea into a race against the clock. Every position comes from a real game and has a move that delivers checkmate immediately, and your job is to find it: smothered mates, Anastasia's mates, discovered checks and many more patterns. Tap or drag a piece to play your move, and the next position appears. You have 90 seconds to solve as many as you can. The first puzzles are easy, so you can warm up and find your rhythm, and the positions get harder the further you go, so a long streak takes real board vision as well as speed. It is played with carved ivory and ebony pieces on a walnut board in a candlelit library, and a miss teaches you something: the board shows how the king escapes, or which piece takes the checker, before you try again.
Mate-in-one puzzles are great brain games: they train you to see every check, every capture and every escape square at a glance, which pays off in any game of chess you play. Mate in One is part of our board games. For more games where a good plan beats fast fingers, try the strategy games and the puzzle games.
Frequently asked questions
What does mate in one mean?
It means the side to move can deliver checkmate with a single move. In every Mate in One position that move exists, and you have to find it.
Can I play a full game of chess here?
Mate in One is a chess puzzle game rather than a full game: each position is set up for you, and you play the one move that ends it with checkmate.
How do I move a piece?
Tap a piece or drag it to make your move. As soon as you find the mate, the next position appears.
How can I solve chess puzzles faster?
Look at every check you can give before anything else. A checkmate is always a check, so listing the checks first narrows the search to a handful of moves.