Mate in One
3 puzzles · 60 sec each
Take the #1 spot
- #1 🦓 you 🦓
Chess
DAILY CHALLENGES
More about MATE IN ONE
Mate in One: Three Checkmates Against the Clock
Mate in One is a free daily chess puzzle game on Quizebra. Every day you get three positions in which one move delivers checkmate, the first easy, the second harder and the third hard, and you have sixty seconds to find each mate. Your score is your total time over all three, so the leaderboard rewards seeing the mate quickly. Everyone in the world gets the same three puzzles each day.
What Is a Mate in One Puzzle?
A position where the side to move can give checkmate with a single move. There is nothing to calculate beyond that move; the whole puzzle is seeing it. Any move that mates counts, even if Lichess recorded a different one.
How Do You Play Mate in One?
Each puzzle starts by playing the opponent’s last move, so you can see what you are answering, and the board is turned so that the side you play is at the bottom. Then the clock starts. Tap a piece, then tap the square you want it to go to. Any move that gives checkmate solves the puzzle. You get one try: a move that does not mate loses the puzzle, and so does running out of time. Either way the solution is shown and the round counts as the full sixty seconds.
You get one ranked set a day. After that you can play practice sets without limit; they do not go on the leaderboard.
Where Do the Puzzles Come From?
All of them come from the Lichess puzzle database, which is free and public: positions from real games played on Lichess, checked by computer to have a single solution. Only puzzles played at least 200 times on Lichess and rated well by the players there are used. Each day’s three are taken from three difficulty bands by their Lichess rating, so the set always climbs.
How Hard Are the Puzzles?
The 500 puzzles are split into three bands by Lichess rating: about 1000 to 1350, 1350 to 1700 and 1700 to 2400. Each day takes one from each band, easy first, and no puzzle comes round again until its whole band has been played. A hard mate in one is still one move, but the mating piece is usually not the one you look at first.
Tips for Faster Mates
Look at checks first. A checkmate is always a check, so list every check you have before anything else, and for each one ask where the king can go. Pay attention to the opponent’s last move, too: it often opens a line or pulls a defender away, and that is usually the point of the puzzle.
When Do the Puzzles Reset?
New puzzles arrive at midnight London time, with a fresh leaderboard. Free, no account, no ads.
The other chess games are Mate in Two, Juicers and Horde, and the best player across all four each day is the Daily ChessWhiz.
Puzzles from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0). The chess pieces are Chessnut by Alexis Luengas (Apache 2.0), with the bishop from the cburnett set by Colin M.L. Burnett (BSD), slightly altered.