About the Daily Mates
Three checkmates a day, the same three for everyone
Every day there are three chess puzzles here: a mate in 1, a mate in 2 and a mate in 3. You play the side that can force checkmate, and your job is to find the moves that do it within the count. Everybody gets the same three puzzles on the same day, so the one your friend is stuck on is the one you are looking at too. New puzzles arrive at midnight UTC.
How a puzzle works
Each puzzle starts from a real position with your side to move. Make a move the way you would in a game — tap a piece, then tap where it goes, or drag it. If your move still forces mate inside the count, the defence replies with the move that holds out longest, and you go on. A puzzle is not marked against a single stored answer: any move that keeps the mate forced is right, so a second good idea on move two counts exactly as much as the first.
One try each
You get one real attempt at each of the three. A move that lets the mate slip away ends that puzzle for the day — it is marked missed, and Show the mate plays out the forced line so you can see what you were looking for. The three are independent: missing the mate in 2 takes nothing away from the mate in 1 or the mate in 3, and you can play them in any order.
The clock and your best times
Each puzzle is timed, and the clock only runs while it is your move on that puzzle's board — the defence's thinking time is never yours. Your fastest solve of each tier is kept, and a quicker one replaces it.
Streaks and sharing
- A day counts toward your streak once all three puzzles are finished, solved or not — the streak is the days you turned up, not a punishment for a miss.
- When the day is done you can share your result: which mates you found and how fast, as a line of squares and times. It never gives a move away.
- The daily has its own set of badges if you are signed in — your first day, a perfect day, a week and a month of days running, and twenty-five perfect days.
Where the puzzles come from
The positions come from a bank of 357 mates in one, 210 mates in two and 253 mates in three, each one checked by the same prover that judges your moves, so every puzzle really is a forced mate in exactly that many moves. A tier does not repeat a puzzle until it has used every one in its bank, which for the mates in two is more than half a year.
Want a whole game instead? The full Chess game has three strengths of computer to play, two players on one device, and a guide to the rules and the tactics that win.
Read the Chess guide →