Mate in One
Checkmate in one move, puzzle after puzzle, against a 90-second clock.
- Round
- 92 seconds
- Works on
- Mobile & desktop
- Category
- Board
Mate in One controls: Find the checkmate: tap a piece, then its square, or drag it · mouse works too. Press Play, then the game takes the keyboard. Press Tab to leave it.
Free play · 92 seconds · no sign-in
Find the checkmate: tap a piece, then its square, or drag it · mouse works too
How to play Mate in One
Tap or click the start screen: the first position appears with a banner saying who is to move. That side always plays up the screen.
Tap one of your pieces to select it. Dots mark the squares it can move to and rings mark the pieces it can capture.
Tap the square that gives checkmate, or drag the piece onto it. If the enemy king cannot escape, it topples and you score.
A move that is not mate costs five seconds and your streak; an arrow shows how the king gets out, and the position stays for one more try. After two misses the mate is shown and the next puzzle appears.
Solve as many puzzles as you can before the 90-second clock runs out. The positions get harder every few puzzles.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Touch: tap a piece | Select it and show its legal squares (tap it again to let go) |
| Touch: tap a marked square | Play the move to that square |
| Touch: drag a piece | Carry it to a square and let go to play the move; anywhere else it goes back |
| Mouse: click a piece, then a square | Select and play, exactly like taps |
| Mouse: click and drag | Drag the piece to its square and release to play |
Tips
Look at every check first. A checkmate is always a check, so listing the checks you can give narrows the search to a handful of moves.
Count the king's escape squares. The mating move is the check that also covers every square the king could flee to, or leaves it boxed in by its own pieces.
Watch the back rank. A king behind three unmoved pawns has no air, and a rook or queen reaching that rank is often mate.
Beware the loud check. On the higher levels the obvious check usually lets the king escape; the mate is often a discovered check or a quiet-looking piece move.
Do not forget the knight. It jumps over a crowd of defenders, and a king hemmed in by its own pieces is often mated by a single knight check: the smothered mate.
Pawns promote to a queen automatically, so a pawn on the seventh rank next to the enemy king deserves a look.
Do not guess to save time. A wrong move costs five seconds and resets your streak multiplier, which is worth more than a few seconds of thought.
About Mate in One
Mate in One is a free online chess puzzle game about the best moment in chess: checkmate. Every position on the board has a move that mates on the spot, and your job is to find it. Tap the piece, tap its square (or drag it there), and if the enemy king has nowhere to go it topples and the next puzzle appears. You have 90 seconds to solve as many checkmate puzzles as you can. It runs right in your browser, with no download, no account and no full game of chess to sit through, which makes it one of our favourite chess games for a short break.
Every position comes from a real game: 1,500 mate in 1 puzzles from the free Lichess puzzle database, with the full middlegame on the board, White or Black to move and the board turned so you always play up the screen. Every run starts gently, with an obvious queen or rook mate in an open position, and the puzzles get harder in fixed steps, five levels in all, sorted by how often real players solve them. On the way you meet the classic checkmate patterns: smothered mates with a lone knight, Anastasia's mate, the Arabian and Boden's mates, the dovetail, epaulette and hook mates, kill boxes, corner mates, pawns that promote with checkmate, and at the top level chess tactics such as discovered and double checks, where the obvious check is a trap and the real mate is quieter. Back-rank mates still turn up, but rarely and never twice in a row. Each position has exactly one mating move, so when you find it you know it was the move.
Scoring rewards speed and accuracy. A solved puzzle is worth 100 to 400 points depending on its level, multiplied by your streak: every puzzle solved in a row adds ×0.2, up to ×3.0. Solve it within ten seconds and a speed bonus of up to 50 points is added. A legal move that is not mate costs five seconds of clock and resets the streak, but the position stays for a second try; miss twice and the game shows you the mate and moves on. Stuck for twelve seconds? The piece that mates starts to glow, and that puzzle then pays half. Ranked runs are replayed on our servers before they reach the leaderboard, so every score on it is real, which puts Mate in One among our competitive games.
The controls work the same on a phone and on a computer. Selecting a piece shows every square it can legally move to, with dots for quiet moves and rings for captures, so a newcomer never has to guess the rules of movement. Drop a dragged piece anywhere else and it simply goes back. You play with carved ivory and ebony Staunton pieces on a walnut board, lit by a candelabra in an old library, and the coordinates on the edge of the board help you read squares like a player. A miss is never a mystery: the board draws the way out, an arrow to the square the king escapes to or to the piece that takes the checker, so every wrong move teaches you what to look for next time. It is part of our mobile games and our PC games alike.
Mate-in-one puzzles are the classic way to train board vision: they teach you to look at every check, every capture and every escape square before you move, a habit that pays off in any real game. That makes Mate in One a natural fit for the brain games and the board games pages, one of our quick games at a minute and a half a round, and a relaxed pick among the casual games for adults. Play a few rounds to warm up, then take a ranked attempt and chase a longer streak.
Details
- Category
- Board Games
- Tags
- Genre
- Board
- Orientation
- Portrait (9:16)
- Works on
- Mobile & desktopPhones, tablets and computers
- Controls
- Mouse or touch
- Released
- Updated
- Credits
- Design and development: Gamefinity
- Puzzle positions: Lichess puzzle database (CC0)
- Age rating
- 4+
Mate in One FAQ
What does mate in one mean?
It means the side to move can checkmate with a single move: after it, the enemy king is in check and has no legal move to escape. Every position in Mate in One has such a move.
How long does a game of Mate in One last?
A round is 90 seconds. Each wrong move takes five seconds off the clock, so a run with mistakes ends a little sooner. The clock keeps running during the short checkmate animation between puzzles.
How is the score calculated?
Each solved puzzle pays its level value (100, 150, 200, 300 or 400 points) times your streak multiplier, which starts at ×1.0 and grows by 0.2 per puzzle solved in a row up to ×3.0, plus up to 50 speed points if you solve it within ten seconds. If the hint glow was showing, the puzzle pays half. A missed puzzle pays nothing.
What happens if I play the wrong move?
Any legal move that is not checkmate costs five seconds and resets your streak, and the position stays so you can try again. The board shows why it was not mate: an arrow marks the king's escape square, or the piece that takes the checking piece or steps in front of it. After a second wrong move the game shows the mating move and goes on to the next puzzle.
Can I play Mate in One on my phone?
Yes. It is made for touch: tap a piece and then its square, or drag it. It plays exactly the same with a mouse on a computer.
Are the positions from real games?
Yes. Every puzzle is a real mate-in-one position from the Lichess puzzle database, which Lichess publishes for free. We keep well-rated, popular puzzles with exactly one mating move, check each one with the game's own chess rules, and sort them into five levels by their Lichess puzzle rating, mixing smothered mates, Anastasia's mates, discovered checks and many other patterns so no two runs feel alike.
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