How many ways can white mate black in three moves?

This was an interesting thread on reddit.com

http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/mijy0/a_counting_exercise/

The poster asked: How many different ending positions exist where white delivers a checkmate on his third move? To get you started: there are 4 different ending positions where black delivers a checkmate on his second move. Can't be too hard, can it?

It took me several tries, and I kept finding new ones.

If you want to see my answer and analysis, I posted it on my chess blog at: http://tacticstime.com/?p=1439

I suggest trying it yourself! It was a lot of fun actually 🙂

Cheers,
Timmy

I think you missed the most obvious one:

Yep! You are right, I did!! lol 🙂 Thanks!! I updated my list to include it 🙂

Hmm how about that same variation but with e3 instead?

Also, there are a few variations where you move the c pawn first, move the queen to c2 and then g6 mate.

Thanks yosiman! I used your ideas to find 5 more :-)

While you are solving funny psudo chess puzzles try this: Whats the shortest stalemate you can construct - Don't spoil the fun with google ;-).

Originally posted by Kaoslos
While you are solving funny psudo chess puzzles try this: Whats the shortest stalemate you can construct - Don't spoil the fun with google ;-).

Originally posted by Erekose
I'd be really impressed if anyone gets this without Googling the answer.

YouTube

The best way to catch all the 3 move mates is to use the Help Mate
feature which Fritz has. Start from the initial position. that should list them all.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
The best way to catch all the 3 move mates is to use the [b]Help Mate
feature which Fritz has. Start from the initial position. that should list them all.[/b]

Originally posted by greenpawn34
The best way to catch all the 3 move mates is to use the [b]Help Mate
feature which Fritz has. Start from the initial position. that should list them all.[/b]